The file calls for Hogsden's Sour Cream Corn Muffins. Got the recipe on the back of the corn meal bag once upon a time. Not sure I spelled Hogsden's correctly.

I am not finding the time to blog lately. But that will change as I am giving up one of my other activities before too long. Of course, I've already acquired a new activity in it's place. I'm helping a dear friend of our family. I announced to Mike tonight that we are going to buy a two-bedroom cottage with wood floors AND a garage apartment in the back because we need a place for our elderly lady friends to live when they need help, which this lady does. St. Petersburg is truly famous for garage apartments. My grandparents owned a nice Federal style apartment building, but in a residential setting near downtown. It was marvelous, had a view of the Vinoy hotel and everything, as in across the street. The apartment was called SunnySide. Of course, EVERY apartment building on that side of the street was called SunnySide. If they were on the north side of the street, they were on the sunny side. Block after block, there were the SunnySide apartments. Well, I confess to a little exaggeration here, but only a little.

The apartment had a front staircase and a back staircase. How much fun can kids have racing up one staircase, tearing down the long front-to-back hallway and crashing down the opposite staircase? A LOT. We used to spend the night at Granny and Grampa's. It was fun and scary. Granny would make up a bed for us in one of the vacant apartments. These were old-fashioned apartments in the strictest sense of the word. Granny did a great job maintaining and managing. I can still picture the little old kitchens as though I'm standing there right now. Granny's apartment was front-to-back and I have every square inch of it memorized. The kitchen sink where Grampa downed his 8 TALL glasses of water every morning. The cranberry juice in the glass bottles that Granny kept in the very old refrigerator. Cranberry juice tastes so much better in glass, instead of nasty old plastic. I remember once my friend who had 3 little kids and tons of toys said, I don't ever want to see another piece of plastic in my house as long as I live. I so GET that. Well, Granny also kept a respectable supply of peppermint patties in the fridge. This is no surprise, the lady who luncheoned on chocolate cake and dill pickles. Then there's the chair my grandfather sat and read his Bible, saying, Precious Jesus! There is the old gas stove where Granny made tapioca pudding and a lens from her eye glasses fell in, but she didn't know it. The front room was Granny's office. We used to love to study her ledgers. They were completely illegible. It was a mystery.

The bedroom looked out at the garage, where 2 tiny apartments were situated. I think once when there was a dog in the family, he had to stay in the garage apartment. With supervision. Well, as a kid I was fascinated by two of Granny's tenants. Alice and Modess. How's that for a name? Modess? Surely it was spelled Modesse. Well, Alice and Modesse were best friends from Maine and they were retired school teachers who wintered in one of the garage apartments. They were both ample women. In fact, one of them was ample in the extreme. The apartment was as tiny as imaginable. It was like a doll house, barely room to turn around in the living room, the bedroom was microscopic and the kitchen, well, two thin women wouldn't be able to squeeze past each other. It was a vivid and ongoing conversation to know how Alice and Modesse managed in this tiny apartment, WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING. They were always so pleasant. We visited them frequently and they would just smile while tiny beads of sweat. . . pardon me . . . perspiration, lined up on their forehead, row upon neat row. Their faces would be beet red and they would rock a Chinese fan back and forth, slowly and steadily. Honestly, these two women could have come straight off of Aunt Bea's front porch. In Michigan we knew two sisters who lived together named Billy and Chloe. There is something about the old days that we are really missing out on in modern times. Everyone seemed to manage their cares easily. Maybe the cares were less, maybe the character was more.

In front of the apartment house were two decorative little palm trees flanking either side of the walkway. The trunks were spiky, a point, ha, of great interest to children. One day the yard man was trimming those palm trees. He got a little scissors happy and basically cut off most of the fronds. Then he went on to do some other damage to the yard, I presume. But my grandfather came home and saw his nude trees and pitched a fit, WHAT?!?! WHAT IDIOT WOULD DO THIS?? OH, MY POOR LITTLE PALM TREES. IDIOT!! IDIOT!! WHO DID THIS?? So the little yard man stepped up and said, I done it, Sir. Grampa's furious tornado face instantly gave way to Mr. Mellow, his big smile taking center stage. Oh, how do you do?, such a lovely job on the palm trees, just beautiful. I can see him nodding his approval and pleasure. I've always wondered what the little yard man was thinking.

Oh, and once a lady came to look at one of the apartments upstairs. Grampa was home alone and BEGGED the woman not to go up. She must have not looked up to the challenge of climbing the steep staircase. Grampa panicked and called his daughter, I can hear the desperation, OH, COME QUICKLY, COME QUICKLY, OH, SHE'S GOING TO GO UP THE STAIRS, IT'S GOING TO BE A DISASTER. I'M BEGGING HER NOT TO DO IT, OH HELP! With that he hung up the phone. Seconds later he called his daughter back, Never mind, it's too late.

Well, I will save the Shepherds story for another time, it's a classic. Suffice it to say, there was never a dull moment at SunnySide. Oh, as kids we loved to visit the lady with the parakeets. My memory for these stories isn't as good as everyone's, I need to do some research, get the gory details.

Another reason I am having trouble blogging is that of late I am stuffing my face with white bread tuna sandwiches. This has a very deadening effect on the brain. Tonight when I took the little lady to Wal Mart (get me off the planet), there was Arnold's Soft, Classic White Family Bread, right there snuggled in with all the other white loaves. It proved coyly irresistable, struck me as the kind of bread Larry Mondello's mother would make his sandwiches with. Not to mention a trip to Wal Mart leaves me with all the gumption to offer sandwiches for dinner, nothing more, nothing less.

In the morning Mike is going to UF game. This will leave me to stir up some egg salad for egg salad sandwiches on white bread. YUM!

Happy owner of a new cream FiestaWare platter with a lip, for a piddly $3.84,
KEM