Adam is one of our more unusual writers. Since very early in the history of LS, November 2015 he has sent us quirky pieces often accompanied by his very individual art. He is a delight to interact with and is obviously a shoo in for an author interview and that treat is to come. However, one of the questions has also spawned this memoir, which was too good to turn down. And so please enjoy a bonus, Adam Kluger.
Roses are red, Violets are blue and Lilac is purple or periwinkle” by Adam Kluger
I was maybe 4 years old and playing croquet with my twin sister Allison at our Grandma Irene’s summer house in Westport, Connecticut.
It was a magical place to spend our earliest summers where we slept in the small guest house painted white with yellow shutters. The rug in the den, where we watched the moon landing a couple years earlier on a black and white tv set (where we also watched Gilligan’s Island), had a wonderfully musty smell that reminded us that we were in the country, along with the sound of crickets and the night air filled with fireflies.
At camp Mohawk, which was a minibus ride away, where the song “Close to You” by the Carpenters” always seemed to be playing on the bus-driver’s radio, “on the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true…,” the counselors held a peanut hunt one day and somehow I found the most.
The first time I had ever won anything!
My prize was a large sheet of thick brown oaktag paper that all the other campers had scribbled on with crayons and splattered paint.
Our beloved nanny Rosie, hung my new Jackson Pollock-like treasure over my bed which was next to a stand-up bathtub in the middle of the room, where Rosie would help wash our hair or sometimes it might also be our brilliant and beautiful, cool, older sister Jane, who has always been fiercely protective of Allison and I.
The fruits and vegetables we ate those summers, like grapes, peaches and corn, were from Wakeman’s farm and were especially delicious. The fragrant lilac bush outside the window was a cross between purple and periwinkle and my mom’s favorite flower. So, I liked the lilac bush as well.
My mom has always been a best friend-just like my twin sister. Mom is 90 now and we speak every day. Her belief is that all children need a full reservoir of love and positive reinforcement. I’m almost 60 now and my mom has always made me feel special and loved. Life has not always been picturesque. A fun game of shoots and ladders or Candy-land.
Back then the days were like a sun-splattered dream watching furry caterpillars on glittery stone walkways and learning how to ride shiny red & white bicycles in the driveway with the help of Bill the handy-man who had his own work shed on the premises.
There was a rusty red swing set that Allison and I would go back and forth on together on the grounds that were known as Haas Acres, covered with fruit trees-pears, peaches and apples, across the street from Christie’s general store where we bought comic books. Across the street you could see Grandma’s main house behind the trees, with an electric blue Cadillac in the driveway with big fins, just perfect for day trips to neighboring Campo Beach with seagulls, cherry ices, hot wooden boardwalks, and outdoor showers.
In the main house we played spite and malice at night with grandma, who was a tough card player. She had jars full of hard candies in the living room, a grandfather clock that always chimed majestically, and a bathroom with guest towels and rose-scented soaps in a dish on the sink. Certain rooms in the main house smelled like mothballs and were perfect as they were.
One summer, Allison fell off that two person swing, and I accidentally ran the swing over her. She got badly scraped up. Bactine was sprayed on her cuts and we both got over that awful scare.
It’s hard to explain the fraternal twin bond except to say that it is our primary personal relationship and the template by which all other subsequent relationships are based, except for the prior, extremely close bond Allison and I also both share with our mom, whose favorite color is blue, favorite flower is lilac and who sees magic in all children, potential friends in most strangers, and the silver lining in most problems.
Case in point, during the pandemic,
I was isolated in my apartment for 100 days due to health concerns. I ended up contracting recurrent cases of Bell’s Palsy that froze both sides of my face. When I stopped outside my mom’s NYC apartment building, (after a second trip to the ER) where I grew up to give her a quick hug, she insisted I pull down my Covid mask and show her my now completely distorted, asymmetrical face. With a tear running down one side of my face, my mom said, “oh, that’s not so bad, some lucky girl will think you are very handsome.” It might not have been the truth but it was what I needed to hear at the moment. When my family says goodbye to each other – the last thing we always say to one another is, “I love you.” I wonder if most other families do the same.
literally stories 
Hi Adam
This is a wonderful memory you have shared. The closeness is palpable in the photographs. It’s nice to see a photograph every now and then in this digital world. Extra colors are added by time. No sepia in the cold retina of modern equipment.
Leila
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deeply enjoyable. So many things I recognize from my own childhood—I’m 61–red & white bicycles, Bactine, card games—though mine were with my cousins, and we played Snap and War and Crazy Eights. And just—the sun-splattered nature of my memories, looking through that very brief window of time. And lilacs!! God, lilacs. Thank you!
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Hey Adam
Your remembrances brought back memories. When I moved away from my parents to get married, I was required (I do mean ‘required’) to call my mother at 5 pm every night for as long as she lived, which was way into her eighties. Even when I travelled to places she didn’t want me to go, which I did a lot, I would call her in the middle of the night where I was and pretend I was home and it was exactly five o’clock, even though I knew even the dial tone was different. I guess it was sort ‘a corny, but there was nothing wrong with saying and hearing “I love you” every day from someone you knew really did.
Thanks for reminding me how a mother’s love works. {A son’s, too.) — Gerry
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Gerry
I really dig how you sometimes include micro-memoirs within your commentary…thanks! Keep up the good work as usual…
Dale
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Adam
I have twin daughters, and so I get to observe the uncanny closeness of twins nearly every day, and I feel comforted all the time by knowing there are twins in this world…I was also good friends with my mother (actually still talk with her sometimes, even though she vanished from the mortal sphere 14 years ago)….So I can really relate to your photo-essay/brief memoir.
I love how this piece shines a light, a very human and enlightening light, on the importance of family, who always stay with us, even after they pass on (if we listen)…The modern family is falling apart (or has already). Your hymn to family closeness is touching and real, and needed in this world on the edge of what’s coming next…
I also really enjoyed your bio, where you name your influences (great influences!) and state your noble purpose as an artist….Keep on knocking and banging at that gate until it comes down! It’s deeply appreciated…Congrads on this publication.
Sincerely,
Dale
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Heartfelt without being sentimental. I appreciate the focus on family. Wonderful photograph.
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Wonderful writing. By coincidence, my bedtime book is currently Tolstoy’s book about childhood. I reckon your memoir can easily stand the comparison. Thank you.
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1950s maternal grandparents with mother, father, older sister (RIP this year just after her 84th), sometimes other relatives. Middle of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. A big old house with dumbwaiters that fascinated us. So many rooms. Ten acres in back where corn was grown. First lesson in the wisdom of corvids, specifically crows. Grandfather said the crows knew to stay just out of shotgun range. Fun inside and out.
The charms of those old places and memories. Well done Adam Kluger.
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Hi Adam,
I have always loved the, no offence meant, only respect, the sparseness of your stories on the site. You are the best and I mean the VERY BEST at the understated, snippet of life stories that so many strive to do but couldn’t achieve in a million years!!
But this personal piece was the same but different. Again, there are very few words in this but you portrayed a helluva lot. Unlike your snippets of stories that I have enjoyed since I first read your work, this has so much PERSONAL depth and feeling that it is actually humbling to read!!!!
You are a master of the sum-up. Whether it be the non-said in a story or the ‘It’s obvious’ in a piece like this, you are the man!!!!!
And please don’t take this as an insult but I met a previous workmate, the amazing Christine Connolly (We had one of the best shifts in the madness of a Homeless Hostel with addicts of all-sorts when we decided to rip apart those sad songs. ‘Mamma Teddy Bear’, ‘No Charge’, ‘Nobody’s Child’, ‘Honey’ and ‘Patches’ – We drew a line at ‘Old Shep’!!!!!) she was suffering from some sort of Bell’s Palsy thing that the doctors didn’t know what had happened to her. I thought she had had a stroke and when she told me what it was, I reckon the soul creased herself when I said, ‘Fuck Christine, remind me not to play poker with you!!’
I haven’t seen her for years, I love her!! Another story is us thinking on marketing an emmm doll type thing for her wee dug as he had needs!!
Enough of this nonsense – Brilliant ma man, it’s always a pleasure to see you here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hugh
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A gorgeous, heart-filling memory so beautifully described and told. I shall have to spend some time going back and reading some of your older stories.
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