Judith Veder

“BAHBY'S COOKIES” by Judith Veder

BAHBY'S COOKIES It was earlier than early. Early felt so different in Bahby’s (my maternal grandmother) apartment. Actually everything felt different. Bahby’s drapes and blinds were always closed so the slipcovers wouldn’t fade; in my house, letting the light in was what we did. In my house, I could tell time with mom’s soap operas; in Bahby’s, I could tell time by my grandfather Shimen’s coming and going to synagogue.   I couldn’t wait for this week to come. I was having a sleepover. I had my new nightie, m...

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“SLEDDING IN THE EARLY YEARS” by Judith Veder

SLEDDING IN THE EARLY YEARS We could not be held back when it snowed; these first flakes causing a riot in our apartment in the projects in Long Island City, N.Y. in the 1940’s. We were like two little wild tigers. Every apartment had kids growling and rioting.  You’d think we’d never seen snow.  Every window got opened and flakes of snow were tasted.  Little snowballs were brought inside and placed lovingly on an ice-box shelf. This snow was a special one. Our radios had not really warned us; our neighb...

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“LOVE the library life” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #142

LOVE THE LIBRARY LIFE           I inherited my library love from my mother Florence. She loved books and learned to read at an early age. Her mother, a Yiddish speaker from someplace in Poland, learned English too at the Seward Park branch library on the lower east side opened in 1909.  My mother always had books in her house. My mother used to say when her last days were upon her, she wanted to spend them in a library. She also said that about Barnes and Noble. Or maybe M...

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“Stubborn as a BULL?” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #94

STUBBORN AS A BULL?           My mother said my sister was stubborn. She’d yell at her, not too loudly, she never did scream, and my sister would not flinch. She’d whack her on the bottom; my sister would just stare her down. “Stubborn as a bull(we had never seen a bull),” she said. “Stubborn like your father…” Now, that was a mouthful, wasn’t it?            Stubborn was not a bad thing I thought. Staying fir...

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“The library life” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #91

LOVE THE LIBRARY LIFE           I inherited my library love from my mother. She loved books. She learned to read at an early age. Her mother, a Yiddish speaker from someplace in Poland, learned English too at the Seward Park branch library on the lower east side opened in 1909.  My mother always had books in her house. My mother Florence used to say when her last days were upon her, she wanted to spend them in a library. She also said that about Barnes and Noble. Or m...

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“ONE MONTH CHANGED IT ALL-” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #89

Life changed drastically in 1952 in Long Island City, Queens, in the projects, when I was told in early June my mother was pregnant. I was almost nine and a very young nine at that. Gladys, my sister was seven.  I didn’t know what pregnant meant, knew nothing about where babies came from and less about how they got there in the first place. And I didn’t even care. I was busy with Double Dutch and my new Spanish twin friends, Blanca y Negra; I was busy with writing names on my pink spaldeen; I was still playing with dolls and taking...

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“Small small bouquetSAY IT WITH FLOWERS” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #86

Some small bouquets- SAY IT WITH FLOWERS Some years that dracaena margenata or dragon tree in my livingroom in the Bronx, New York, has stalks of flowers that come out at night to attract moths, and by morning, smell so heady and sweet, we need to open the windows.  They are also very sticky. I’ve never seen the moths and that’s ok. What does that say? This plant is the descendent of the very first plant my now ex and I bought in the plant area in downtown New York in 1965 for $2.00 and carried on the subway all the way home...

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“The story of the couple who stayed together...” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #81

My parents are the older couple who had been together since teenagers. They met in Camp Moodna in Mountainville, N.Y. in the 1930’s, children of immigrants, eager to leave the hot city each summer and grateful for this camp set up by the Grand Street Settlement. She was a camper, her family scraping together the dollars to send her there, he, a dishwasher, needing those dollars to help his mother and two younger sisters. Both of them were used to working. Sometimes she accompanied her Aunt Ethel to the home of the famous ...

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“LOST AND FOUND” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #79

LOST AND FOUND           I yearned for a cousin’s club from the time I could talk. I really didn’t know what that was. I think I thought it meant lots of kids playing, lots of cake and ice-cream, all with your family, all with cousins. My mother went to someone else’s’ cousin’s club she called the Bergs. She never had them to our house. I don’t think I ever knew them. My father had two cousins he hardly ever saw.          &nbs...

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“My sister refused by invitation to "hobby"” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #78

I cannot convince her, my 8 year old sister to join in my hobby- art I call it. It is early Saturday morning, maybe 10am. I am about 10, 1953. Freckles cover my face and my red curls cover the freckles and my eyes at this early hour. I have been allowed to stay in my nightie, the one trimmed with lace and flowers, the one that flares out from under my still invisible breasts. My feet are bare. I am sitting on a little stool, which my father made, and I am about 6 inches from the TV set. This is what my father wo...

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“Sledding through the great blizzard” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #77

          We could not be held back when it snowed; we were like two little wild tigers, these first flakes causing a riot in our apartment in the projects in Long Island City, N.Y in the 1940’s. Every apartment had kids rioting.  You’d think we’d never seen snow. Every window got opened and flakes of snow were tasted. Little snowballs were brought inside and placed lovingly on an ice-box shelf. This snow was a special one. Our radios had not really warned us; our neighbor...

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“LISTING THROUGH MY LIFE” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #74

LISTING THROUGH MY LIFE-           There are lots of lists I live by- top tens- in my life now at 77 plus. I can trace so much of my life by the top ten movie lists in the many decades of my life.           I was born in 1943. I was the top one that year, the first child of Flos and Moishe, the first grandchild of Sam and Lena and Shimen and Esther, the first great-grand of my Zaide and my other great Rachella. There was not A S...

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“Bahby's Cookies” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #71

BAHBY’s COOKIES It was earlier than early. Early felt so different in Bahby’s (my maternal grandmother) apartment. Everything felt different. The drapes and blinds were always closed. In my house, letting the light in was what we did. In hers, “the slipcovers will fade…” In my house, I could tell time with mom’s soap operas; in Bahby’s I could tell time by my grandfather Shimen’s coming and going to synagogue.  I couldn’t wait for this week to come. I was having a sleepover. I had my new nightie, my new...

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“Migrating to live...” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #63

“I am the tern…goo goo g’joob…” From The Beatles’ I am the Walrus           I go from pole to pole, corner to corner, (a song line I recall) - Sterna Paradisa- me, the arctic tern. My flight or really my glide can be over 56,000 miles. I have the record for the longest migration of any animal, Arctic Circle to Antarctic Circle. I see more daylight than any other being. I like this. Night is scary. Nigtmares  of bigger foes; egg stealers. We terns nest once every t...

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“The TIME CAPSULE- then and now.” by Judith Veder

Submitted to Contest #62

THE TIME CAPSULE-then and now.           In 1990, I interred not a body but my time capsule in Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. I played there as a child; I climbed rocks, chased birds, skated on the lake in winter and rowed boats there in the summer. It was only fitting that the capsule be buried and hidden there, in the burial ground on vault hill.           1990 was a good year- Germany was reunited; Namibia became independent...

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