Bed is still on my mind, but this time it has more to do with my reduced circumstances than other more interesting developments. I’ve moved out of an eight-room house into a four-room one. Or rather, moved downstairs into half the space Wally and I, along with our three children, occupied.

Of course, the children have been long gone, leaving their empty bedrooms behind. We‘ve put up a good many of our extended family and friends on summer visits or at holiday time, some for months. There were that many beds in the house. But this new arrangement, with one of the sons and his family of five renovating the upstairs, has left me without a guest room.

Roaming around my new space only one wall seemed long enough to accommodate a bed, and that in what was always Wally’s room, the space I so painfully emptied out a couple of months ago.  Then I remembered my grandparents’ Murphy bed.

Their southside Chicago apartment was a world apart from my leafy suburban home; I spent a week with them there every summer, away from parents and little brother. My memories of them, of that apartment are spotty, but clear. Every morning my grandmother’s canary Wimpy splashed in his little bathtub, set on newspapers on the dining room table. The building’s hallway and stairs, musty and warm, were carpeted with thick wooly stuff, the downstairs entryway tiled with those tiny white squares you used to see in the subway. There were little brass doors on the mailboxes. You pushed a button to ring upstairs, and they’d buzz you in.

The building stood close to the sidewalk, with only a narrow stretch of earth between, where the oddest trees, Ginkos I think they were, stunted and small, grew here and there along the street. Gray-painted wooden porches climbed up the back of the buildings, with clotheslines stretched to the one across the way. Women stood on their own porch, just outside their kitchen door, to hang their clothes. That’s where you saw your neighbors.

A little girl my age lived in the next apartment on the porch. Maybe I played with her. I can’t remember.

It was a one-bedroom apartment with a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Every night my grandmother would open two curtained glass doors in the dining room to reveal a double bed standing on its end. The Murphy bed. She’d pull it down, fluff up the bedding, and I would climb in.

Sadly, I remember more about that apartment than I do about my grandparents. What did we talk about, this old couple and their little granddaughter? I know I loved them dearly; Nanny was soft and plump, my first experience of pure love.

Da would take my hand and walk me all over his neighborhood, took me into the daytime, cool darkness of his favorite taverns, where we sat on stools at the bar, while he talked with the bartender. Years later my father told me he was a bookie, placing bets for people on the horses. I remembered the folded racing form he always had in his back pocket. He smelled of SenSen, the tiny breath-freshners he carried in another pocket. Sometimes he’d give me some.

I was twelve the Christmas Eve Da had a heart attack at our house and left in an ambulance. After he died it was obvious to my parents that Nanny couldn’t live alone, that he’d been hiding her increasing dementia from them. She spent her remaining years in a nursing home; I don’t remember seeing her again.

I’m a big fan of Youtube DIY videos, and apparently Murphy beds are all the thing these days. Essentially, you build a box to hold the mattress and then a cabinet to hide it in. Mine is a twin and will be tucked horizontally into its cabinet attached to that one wall. So far the box out of one sheet of plywood and three 1x4 pine boards, is built, sanded and painted.

Along the way I learned about pocket holes, a really cool way to fasten wooden pieces together, and went right out and bought the jig. So far I’ve made 32 pocket holes assembling the pieces of my new bed, and borrowed or bought several tools I didn’t have. One day the carpenters working upstairs cut some very neat mitered corners for me, much better than I’d have managed. On another I had help trimming the plywood pieces on the table saw.

What will our grandchildren, those six young ones growing up within a couple of miles of Sleepy Hollow, remember of us, of Wally and I? I was twelve the year my Da died, and the above few paragraphs contain nearly all my memories of him. Our oldest grandchild was thirteen when Wally died.

For several years we had a weekly breakfast with some or all of them. The table was set, places determined by their individual napkin rings which ended the scrambling for the best seat. The menu was pretty standard: pancakes one week, blueberry muffins the next, popovers occasionally, and once a month, Pie-for-Breakfast.

He sat at one end of the table, I at the other, the children in between, and we talked to each other. Wally always had a story to tell, often on himself, always with a point.  The children had stories too, about school or each other. There was a lot of laughter.

I’d wonder sometimes, silently, how much they’d remember of us, of the things that were said at these breakfasts, of him especially in the year of his illness.

One thing I’ve learned during these months of mourning the loss of half of myself is that he isn’t really gone. He’s as much my other half as ever, it’s just that now I can’t touch him or look into his eyes or hear his voice. He’ll be singing me no more silly songs about fluffy cats or having long discussions about almost anything. I’ll never hear him read again.

Those things are gone, but the essential him has moved inside of me. It will be there as long as I am. Just as my memories of my Nanny and Da, scant though they are, have resided – warm and loving – for sixty years. I’m pretty sure that’s where our six will find Wally too.

The Lincolnville General Store is finally ready! Briar and Jon Fishman invite the community to their Grand re-opening this Friday, October 27 with pizza, burgers and dogs by Rollie’s Bar and Grill and music, too. The Route 17 Ramblers will be playing on the porch at 4 p.m., followed at 6 p.m. by the Mallett Brothers.

K-2 students visited the Lincolnville Fire Department recently where Ben Hazen gave them a tour and a talk about fire safety. See photos of the day on the LCS newsletter, Lynx News .

Tuesday October 24 needleworkers meet, 4-6 p.m. All welcome.

Saturday October 28, 10 a.m. to noon, Julie Turkevich will be at the Library with plenty of colorful paper, markers, strings and other materials to make Halloween decorations. Bring the kids and get into the scissors and glue. It’s fun for both child and parent. Julie’s monthly craft projects are free, and always clever.

Have you heard of Window Dressers, the volunteer organization that makes lightweight storm window inserts to go inside of your windows. Each window insert can save as much as 6 gallons of heating oil per old window per year. For those in need, the inserts are made at very reduced prices. The inserts are being made now, and a few more volunteers are needed to finish them on time. Sign Up here for the Belfast Boathouse location. Jobs needing volunteers include assembling franes from pre-cut wood, covering them in plastic, or even preparing a meal for the workers. Learn more about Window Dressers here.

Moody’s Cranberries

Lincolnville’s only (as far as I know) commercial cranberry bog, Fred and Margo Moody’s operation on Heal Road, will be open next Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. I like to put them in the freezer to use through the year.