Tharptown

My parents moved out of the apartment above Mammam and Dzjajie’s when my mother felt that Mammam was getting too possessive of my sister Donamarie. They moved to an apartment in Tharptown a couple blocks away from the house I lived in until I went to college. The owners of the house at the time, Dot and Merle Beaver, lived downstairs and the arrangement was not dissimilar to the one my parents escaped. Eventually, Dot who had never had children of her own, became very possessive of my sister as well.

Pictured above are Donamarie, Paulie my cousin, and my brother. It was Jan’s first birthday and they were posing on and near the yellow, gray and black patterned dinette set that moved with them to their next house; it resided in our kitchen until I was a teenager. The original image was taken about six years before I was born in the apartment above the Beaver’s – I think that is Dot’s arm on the right reaching in to make sure Jan didn’t tip backwards. That is probably Dot’s purse on the left. Next to it on the counter is something that only exists in this image and earlier versions of it – I put it there about eight years ago. It is an appliance of sorts with a function that addressed a very specific need common in kitchens of that earlier era and now.