Back in the day, maybe 80 years or so ago now I’m not sure, Nora Roddy worked for Wanamaker’s.
The original location still stands in center city – I think that’s the one she worked at though I’m not sure. It’s now the home of a Macy’s, but with all the grandeur of the original architecture still there.
Last month a man was stopped attempting to steal hats from that Macy’s. He returned them and left, returning a few minutes later to fatally stab one security guard and wound the other.
Over hats.
From a store that sells designer handbags and jewelry in plain sight.
My great-grandmother died a year or so before my birth.
But I was told she would say her worst day here was better than her best day in Ireland. And she only ever visited Ireland once, when her sister died. She lived well into her nineties.
And I wonder what she’d think of what has become of this place.
And of this family.
Though I doubt she was a warm and fuzzy woman.
None in my family are.
They did what they had to to survive.
Of Mary, Marion, and Carol
Carol is the softest.
I don’t forgive. But I understand.
To some degree I understand.
Laughs and Lobotomies 