The benches in the New York City Clerk’s office were hard and uncomfortable. The wood was worn and shiny from nervous and impatient squirmings. The room was dim and shabby, wearied from processions of the city poor, eager to pay the few dollars for the privilege of marriage, or not eager, but complying with demanding families, resenting the notices of do’s and dont’s, murmuring to the indifferent walls. And behind barred windows, clerks in funereal voices, never calling names fast enough to spare the nervous couples the glances of others. The eyes that have seen it all before; waiting, birth, death, the history of in-betweens, waiting.
My Grandma often told us about an adventure that she and Grandpa had in Winnipeg soon after my dad was born.
literally stories 