On Thanksgiving I saw my grandma at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale. It was lunchtime. She sat with her assigned table mates, Bobby and Matt. Bobby calls everybody honey. He uses the word like people use salt: “Hey there honey! Haven’t seen you in a while honey! Happy Thanksgiving there honey,” he says.
Matt’s a small man who speaks softly. He was asleep in his chair wearing his white disposable bib when I came. When I sat down, he woke up.
“Ohhh! Good to see you! You look great!” He said.
“Yeah, you look great there honey,” says Bobby.
Bobby told us that the cook there is Italian. “Yeah, they make the spaghetti here downstairs honey. They make it there. The cook’s Italian. They make it good there honey.”
Today the attendants served the seniors turkey dinner. But Bobby always talks about spaghetti.
I’ve chatted with Bobby and Matt before. I found out that Bobby used to be an undertaker’s assistant. He worked for his uncle and says he never got paid. “No he didn’t pay me honey, no.”
Behind us at another table was the woman who takes her shoes off and puts her feet up on the table. Today she had taken her shirt off, so she sat there topless, no bra. Her feet were on the table as usual.
“Hey honey put some clothes on there honey!” Bobby said.
“Oh that woman’s crazy,” grandma said, making a shooing motion.
“Leave her alone,” said Matt, looking back again. Then Matt told me, “I wonder if I went over there and told her to stand on the table if she’d do a dance for me.”
“Ahahahaha! You mean like a stripper?” I said. Matt cracks me up with these bits. Matt laughed too. The old woman, she didn’t look bad.
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