Memories. . . .

When I was a child -- many, many decades ago -- my grandparents lived in New York City, and we would

visit them a couple of times each year. Of course, some of the happiest visits were over the Christmas holidays! Not just because my Grandfather, Alfred, called me his 'secret pal' and hid treasures for me in his grand, elaborately carved desk. Not because of the presents and the sweets to eat or even because we'd sometimes get to miss a few days of school. Mostly, my happy New York holiday memories are of seeing the city virtually ablaze with the most beautiful, colorful, sparkling lights! They reflected off of the snow (or in the wet pavement), and made the whole city seem like a fairyland to me!

Here in my old age, I sometimes can't remember what I did two hours ago, but I can intimately recall our visits to Nana and Alfred's home in New York. Oddly, I can even remember the address. . . .99 Metropolitan Oval. I can close my eyes and smell the slightly acrid air that hung in the downstairs hallway of their high-rise apartment building, emanating from the incinerators which were so common back then. I can taste the ice cream bar we'd always get when we walked to the Good Humor store, and I can somehow feel the weight of the Sunday papers we would buy at the corner newsstand. Nana used real butter. I remember that, too, so fondly.

It's strange, the things we store in our mind's memory bank. Sometimes I can't remember what I had for lunch today, but those happy times at Christmas are with me forever.