Amaranth Ehrenhalt

When I was a young child, we lived on Warnock Street in Philadelphia. There were row houses with alley ways in a neighborhood composed of European Jews, Italian Catholics, Irish and a few other white Scandinavian nationalities. There were no blacks,Hispanics, Asians,or Indians. My mother always said,’’There are good and bad in every kind’’. I was raised to not be prejudiced.

We were a boisterous bunch of kids, screaming with delight as we played « kick the can » and gathered bottles full of lightning bugs in jars with holes punched in the covers by our fathers.

One party we attended gave a list for a scavenger hunt to each of us. On my list was a fly. I went to my father and showed him the list. He took some black thread and glue and dexterously fashioned a convincing looking « fly » which hung on the end of a black string to my utter rapture. This « fly » won me a prize !

My Mother disappeared for about a week. We were told that she had gone to visit her sister and that an « Aunt » would take care of us. We knew as soon as we saw the portly woman that she was no Aunt of ours. She did not look like, cook like, talk like, act like, any aunt we ever knew. We did not like the food she prepared, nor the harsh way she ordered us around.

My older brother Ed and I were playing in the back yard when our father called us in saying that he had a « surprise » for us as well as some ice cream. I think we were more interested in the ice cream, but, in we went. The surprise was Barry, our baby brother. This was completely unexpect- ed since we had been in no way prepared for a new sibling. I took over and became possesive.

Sandra, petite and suntanned, with straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail, was trying to put some order into Aldo's very messy artist's print studio, where artists work with a professional printer to make editions of etchings. The way she was flitting around in her short-sleeved, textured, cotton, bright canary yellow blouse with an embroidered hem and matching yellow miniskirt made me ask Aldo, in Italian, "What do you call those bright yellow songbirds?"

"Oh, 'canarini,'" he replied in Italian. (We all know his nationality by now.)

I repeated "'Canarini.' Is one a canarino? Is there a canarina as well?"

"No," was the answer, "only for female. Canarino for male and canarini, plural."

Not to imitate Gertrude Stein, but to cement the word in my head I repeated, the pleasant sounding"Canarini" several times.

Aldo, aproned and cleaning an etching plate, his hands encased in transparent plastic gloves, said, "There used to be a fellow named Giovanni who came here. He was a painter and writer with a slight heart problem. He told me that his neighbors did not like the sound of chirping canaries." Aldo found that a bit odd; so did I.

One terribly cold winter day, Giovanni arrived on his motorcycle. Aldo saw that he was wearing a sweater and a light jacket, with his head bare and recently shaved.

Aldo asked him why he was choosing to run around bald in such cold weather. Most people preferred to keep their hair longer in the winter and cut it short in the summer. Giovanni answered that he just liked the look. Aldo suggested that he dress more appropriately for such cold weather.

My (then) husband and I had left Paris for New York and we were trying to get some work to replenish our coffers. Looking through the New York Times want ads under: artist, designer, art teacher and anything related, I spotted an ad for a Director of an Arts and Crafts program at an old people's home." Here I go again" I thought. I answered the ad and secured an interview. Being an artist all my life and having done just about every kind of arts and crafts I thought this would be a cinch!

I was offered the job. I had several people on the staff who were under my direct supervision: a lady who was hired to teach knitting and crocheting, a man to teach woodworking, and several others ranging from potters to weavers. Several little old ladies enjoyed themselves and felt very useful knitting vary colored wool squares that were to be sewn together to make blankets. There was a money raising gift store where the products could be sold and the money used to buy new materials, etc.

The problem was that some of the work was so dreadful that there was no way I was going to allow it to get as far as the gift store. After all, the main purpose of all this was to keep the people occupied and happy. What difference did it make if the objects were unacceptable for sale? So I had the worst squares unraveled and the next day gave a different lady the same wool to make more dreadful squares. Most of these people were senile and so out of it that they did not know the difference. It kept them busy and satisfied.

There was an elderly man, named Vladimer, who told me some childhood stories of growing up on a farm in Russia. I liked his stories and asked him to write them down. Then there was another man, Jerry, who liked to draw. I thought his sketches were marvelous! As Picasso had said, all his life he wanted to get back to the spontaneity of childhood. These colorful crayon drawings had a childlike charm. The French artist Debuffet would have flipped over them. So I had the idea to have him read the stories by Vladimer and illustrate them. I encouraged the two men to get together and work cooperatively. I was thrilled with the results. Now I had some lovely stories with attractive illustrations.

Another man had told me that he had been a printer. There were a few copy machines. So. I decided that we would print a little magazine. Now I had Vladimer, Jerry and Samuel working together as a team. They were all very excited about the project and other people started to get involved as well. There was a fellow who loved to paint, having discovered this medium in his late eighties! One day he called me over to look at his painting of a house. He asked me if it would be allright with me if he painted the roof purple. He had told me that he had been a mechanic. I asked him if the business was his own or