My Grandpa's Story

by Robert B. Z. Williams

In a third floor apartment in Chicago, in 1945, a boy of about 10 was waiting for his dad. He was my mom's dad, Harold. His dad wasn't there because he was in the Army Medical Corp and he helped by healing allied troops during World War II. There would be many days of waiting for him to come home.

It was a Saturday, the day his mom, his sister, and he would go downtown. While his mom shopped he had the option to go to the movies. He and his friends liked war movies and funny movies especially Abbott and Costello. Sometimes when they were downtown, they had BLTs because,

"The few times we got meat, Grandma Minsk put road salt on it and burned the meat till it tasted like leather," said my Grandpa.

But on Saturdays, Grandpa, his sister Bette, and his mom ordered the BLTs downtown at the store's lunch counter.

On school days he walked two blocks to get to school it was a Hebrew school. In the afternoon he learned Hebrew but they did not really teach what it meant. He was on a football team and a baseball team although Grandpa told me he wasn't very good.

I really enjoyed collecting this story. I had no idea what Grandpa's life was like when he was my age until now.