Being able to hear the dogs barking themselves silly as you come down the driveway...
clamshell shards in lieu of asphalt...
burning feet at Flying Point beach...
homemade pesto with home-grown elephant garlic...
sauteed cherry tomatoes...
tennis on the TV...
the smell of Pall Malls...
the feeling of soft moss underfoot near the pond...
sweltering in the upstairs bedroom on summer nights...
taking the dogs to Carvel and then for a run on the beach...
going to grown-up parties and wandering around others' houses...
getting a lecture from Shirley and Tee Adams when all I wanted to do was watch the Miss America pageant...
the little copper saucepan in her kitchen...
triscuits and tomato juice in the fridge...
Ivory Snow by the washing machine...
the smell of Prell shampoo and showering outside on hot summer afternoons...
the magnetic soap holders...
bathing Charlie in the kitchen sink when he was a baby...
the coffee table imprinted with fossils of shells and tiny prehistoric animals...
the pictures of lions hanging in the stairwell...
being able to hear the train whistle at night, which for years blew the exact same notes that form the first orchestral chord of Debussy's "L'Apres Midi d'un Faune"...
the excitement of seeing swans on the pond...
Athena's horse paddock...
the huge, feathery, gone-to-flower asparagus plants...
giant purple alliums, later dried and displayed in the baroque coffee pot on the sideboard...
tiny white gravel by the back door...
the dusty smell of the studio...
the beautiful worn brick of the walkway...
playing "Island of the Blue Dolphins" (i.e. being stranded on an Aleutian Island) with shells and sticks, and then being stung by a wasp and screaming bloody murder...
walking to the Penny Candy store to buy those candy dots on paper, candy cigarettes, and mint leaves...
leaving pennies on the railroad tracks with Athena and Pete...
doing Mad Libs with Athena in the upstairs bedroom and her saying "Horse" (and spelled "Hoss") every time she was asked for a noun...
swinging open the huge bedroom window shutters and looking down at the living room...
her little glass jar of salt with the big cork and the wooden spoon...
Her ceramic "S" hanging on the wall...
the smell of salt air and dogs...
the old sweatshirt I inherited from her that for years after smelled EXACTLY like her and her house (I hated to wash it)...
making "doggie stew" and doling out Liv-A-Snaps...
being fascinated as a child with the cat door that opens underneath the house...
the espaliered pear tree on the street side of the studio...
swimming with Athena and Pete one summer in that murky pond...
hanging out in the dory on the pond with Pippit...
the high-pitched squeak Pippit would emit when she was excited...
Spider and Mara...Dolly...Shammy...Nathan...Bobby...Pippit...Bugsy...
how Shirley helped me to get ARF to to place Butch, an abused cat from my old Bronx neighborhood, with a nice adoptive family...
sitting around in Dorothy MIllstone's livingroom and looking at all her tchotchkes...
going to the dump with the dogs...
Shirley's ingenious kitchen trash can system (the hole in the counter!)...
Gristedes milk in the brown and red carton...
Dove chocolates in the vegetable crisper...
the cool terra cotta tiles underfoot downstairs...
the bright chime of her downstairs clock...
the woodstove on chilly days...
the picture on the living room shelf of Pete and Shirley, with Spider licking Pete's face...
the precarious three-legged dining room chairs that dump you on the floor when you shift your weight even slightly...
the perpetual hunt for a pillow for Shirley to use while reading that was strong enough to withstand her incredibly sharp elbows...
attempting to make said pillows and stuffing them with everything from cotton batting to rice. Nothing worked, of course...
Shirley's coy assertion, when asked about Jelly (whom she and everyone who met him believed to be the world's most perfect marmalade cat), that she "made him up out of my head. And no, you can't have him."...
Shirley being so patient and sweet with Pete when he was a little boy and threw up twice in one night...
writing a poem to Shirley, which I planned to read aloud during a company visit exhorting her to stop being so crabby and go sailing (she did not sail, don't know why I thought this was a good idea)...
the dogs galloping with abandon in the back yard, tongues flapping and ropes of saliva training in the breeze...
the wonderful shaggy copse that forms the front end of the property, making it truly private...
the thrill of driving all the way from Boston and FINALLY turning into that magical gravel driveway and driving through that tunnel of trees...
doing little woodworking projects during the summer and painting them with leftover house paint...
Laughing once at a shopping list she wrote that said "canned cat" (she forgot the word "food") and the next morning being wordlessly and straight-facedly presented by Shirley with a can bearing a handmade label saying "CANNED CAT". This sits on my shelf still...
coffee in a kimono in the mornings. I have owned many kimonos, most hand-imported by my dad, because I like the memory and the feeling of it...
being yelled at to close the #$%$#@ shower door upstairs (until I was 40, although I hadn't left it open and flooded the bathroom since the Carter administration)...
sandy towels and sunburns...
takeout duck legs from Citarella...
"Sushi Wooshi" in fashionable downtown Water Mill...
going to Megans for burgers with cheddar/port spread (so good)...
going to the post office to pick up the mail...
Shirley's unmistakable handwriting and simple cream-and-brown stationery...
the beautiful birth announcement she made when Charlie was born...
the skeleton and funny little animal skulls in the studio...
a million cool pencils and drafting tools to play with...
the tool bench...
the suet bird feeder...
being really happy that Shirley liked three cast brass Japanese garden bells I gave her one Christmas...
baking her a prune cake (thinking it was something nice from her childhood) only to be told "what is this crap?" (trust me, it was funny)...
trying on Sally Curtis' new Walkman when they had just come out, and wandering from room to room in Shirley's house, marveling that I could still hear the music JUST THE SAME wherever I walked...
Alfonso...
As a very small child way trying to walk with my mother all the way to the Milk Pail along the Montauk Highway, never realizing it was nearly four miles away...
Mara running away all the time...
Bugsy trying to bite the water coming out of the sprinkler...
Heavy Duty, the cat with 34 toes...
realizing for the first time that Shirley just as much as my grandmother had raised my dad...
not understanding why she wanted to stay in a hotel when she came to visit (I totally get it now!)...
plants and flowers everywhere...
sounds of birds and cicadas...
talking with her about the house, how it was built, and finding out how to maintain it (although Dick Jr. really did everything)...
if you left even one paperclip at her house after visiting, receiving a grouchy phone call from Shirley in which she would berate you for leaving "all that crap" in the house...
A gold-colored can of pate of dubious origin that stood on her pantry shelf literally as long as I can remember...
Shirley being triumphant when she and Dick figured out you could use those cheap, adaptable wooden tool handles from the hardware store as stair grips/railings. She loved anything clever like that...
the feeling of amazement when the back yard was first re-landscaped to include the new trees and the little brook...
the little slate lazy susan on her countertop with the African clay dish, the tiny sleeping rhinoceros, toothpicks, eyeglass cleaner, and other carefully curated things necessary to the activities done while sitting there (largely, reading and drinking coffee or whiskey, smoking cigarettes)...
the little oblong copper pan that always held a neat, crisp stack of Viva paper napkins. She was very brand-loyal. I remember being shocked when she started using Dove soap in lieu of whatever she'd used for decades before. Only a dermatologist's orders would've compelled a huge change like that...
the binoculars hanging at the ready, in case some interesting bird should alight on one of the perfectly-positioned bird feeders outside the kitchen window...
The bookshelf by her easy chair containing life's most important books: Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", and a guide to north American birds...
her brightly colored Swedish enameled ashtrays... was the one in her bedroom turquoise or orange?...
the little stool painted with a portrait of Dolly, the bassett hound, one of Shirley's dogs when I was very small (6 or 7)...
remembering that Shirley buried Dolly when she died out in a garden, beneath a little tree and a bunch of day lillies...
the day a bunch of official Audubon bird watcher tramped into Shirley's house, a crisp fall day, taking "inventory" of all migratory birds they could observe in and around her property (which, sitting on a pond lying very near a bunch of other small ponds, makes it a perfect haven for birds of all sorts). Fixing them some hot soup and tea...
sliding open the kitchen window on summer mornings and letting the breeze blow through the house, listening for Shirley coming and going from the studio, waiting to hear her screen door slam...
repeating "wait, Bobby, wait...Bobby, wait!! WAIT, BOBBY!!" every time you tried to go out the sliding glass door...
learning from Shirley what a "Baltimore Oriole" was (the bird, not the baseball team, although that's what she called the birds). Also, spotting red-winged blackbirds and learning the sound of their wonderful, distinctive song...
the mysterious and always-exciting little path that connected the Haresign's property and Shirley's, and shuttling back and forth all summer long on many exciting missions...
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