Summon the Tiger

My dad told of taking the ferry across the Detroit River on Sundays to visit with my grandfather’s family, who had managed to settle near Clark Park before the immigration quota took effect. How his uncle Andrew, in his early twenties, had died in the parlor of their home in Windsor – 10 Francois Street. Andrew left behind a twenty-one-year-old, three-month pregnant widow. He told of shattering the dining room mirror with an errant BB from his BB gun. And how, as the Depression wore on, his heated bedroom was rented out, leaving him to sleep in the unheated attic. Then, how they rented that house out entirely, moving to an apartment over a bank in Dearborn which was part of the family’s compensation for running the local movie theater: my grandfather keeping the equipment running, my grandmother doing the cleaning, and my dad being the usher. Six days a week. How they raised George the mean goose until Thanksgiving, George becoming the Thanksgiving Day main course.