Mom, this one’s for you. Sounds like a beer slogan, but no one’s exempt from a shot at being the subject of my pen and paintbrush.
You graduated from a two-year nursing program around 1950, setting yourself on track to become a Registered Nurse. Once married, you were a homemaker until we kids entered kindergarten. Then, you worked second shift two days a week, eventually three.
As a high school senior, I got a part-time job at the gas and electric utility company, where I learned of an open position for a corporate nurse. Evidently, too many employees complained that the previous nurse had jabbed them more than once while administering shots. You hesitated, but Dad and I urged you to apply. You landed the job and settled right in, assisting two doctors who alternated coming in. You gave the employees routine physicals and shots. Even I would come in occasionally to see you. You came to love your job and kept fit, sometimes walking the four miles to work.
Amazingly, you juggled the health needs of several hundred workers. A true professional, you kept their entire private information private, what you’d now be required to do per HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). However, at home, you regaled us once about a nameless woman whose departmental workers put deodorant on her desk until she finally sought your help. You certainly counseled your share of employees facing other personal issues.
When you arrived home, you switched seamlessly to domestic juggling. Being the oldest of three daughters in a home where Grandma and Grandpa immigrated from Kharpet, Armenia, you wanted to maintain the old traditions. You told of having toted to school dolma (stuffed grape leaves) sandwiches when the other kids were eating one slice of baloney between two slices of white bread.
You experienced the Depression and carried over cost-saving measures by making what we called “sticky meat”: braised lamb in four quarters, essentially the knuckles. Lamb tongues in chicken broth, accompanied by bulgur pilaf, occasionally graced our table. Your rice pilaf harkened to the days when there couldn’t be enough butter in it. I remember when we finished the pot, we’d dip our dan hatz (house bread) into the half inch of liquid butter floating at the bottom of the pan. Of course, we were oblivious to the fact that heart disease was around us.
While you maintained your Armenian culinary traditions, you were learning and experimenting with American cuisine. Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s and Good Housekeeping kept you well informed of cool, current recipes. There always seemed to be another casserole or stroganoff to try. You introduced us to liverwurst and olive loaf and you fried diskettes of mortadella, the fat of which we’d soak in bread. On Saint Patrick’s Day, you’d prepare a mean boiled dinner, which was as far from the Armenian treatment of meat and cabbage as could be. I still love it. You even prepared sloppy joes.
Your willingness to make grape bastegh (roll-ups) one day and lime Jell-O pie with crushed pineapple and cream the next was unparalleled. Among the metal art pieces Dad made for all of us were utilitarian kitchen items for you. You loved his solid aluminum rolling pin, and often in winter roasted whole chestnuts for us on his stainless steel pan. You cut a cross in the convex side of each shell so they wouldn’t jump off the pan once browned. Part of the handle was simulated wood but another part was brass, so holding the heated pan was an adventure.
When we kids acted up, you’d struggle to lift that three-pound monster and threaten to swat our behinds with it. Right! Egging you on with a straight face, Dad joked he’d give us the updug (slap), a.k.a. the hing yekpayr (5 brothers). Just so readers are clear, neither of you ever really raised a finger to us.
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