I received a letter from Jeanne Sweeney the other day. She was formerly editor of this newspaper.

Dear Jerry,

I wonder if you have words that seem to trigger memories as I do.

When I write the word Friday I remember that in my earlier days it meant "fish day" for our Catholic family. No meat on Friday. That also meant that if my dad couldn't get fresh fish from Booth's Fish house on the waterfront, Mom would resort to canned tuna or canned salmon for the meal. She was awfully good about making something from nothing but my brother hated casseroles. He referred to her wonderful tuna potato chip dish and "mug."

No matter how good it was, all of us looked forward to Saturday which was steak day. And Steak day meant we'd all go to the Granada Theater after dinner to see a movie. usually meeting up with some aunts and uncles and cousins.

Dad always drove from our home on 104th and 32nd Southwest, down on 35th Southwest to Morgan street and gave us a thrill went he'd drive our big old car down the steep hill to Fauntleroy. We'd close our eyes and pretend that we were on a roller coaster. No seat belts then and my brother and I often bounced right off the seats, squealing and laughing. Mom would say "Paul for gosh sakes you will kill us all" which made it even more exciting for Mickey and me.

I saw "Gone with the Wind" at the Granada. I also saw a family waiting outside on the sidewalk hoping people would put money in the shoe box they silently held with a sign that asked "Please help us to feed our children." My mom made Mickey and me move past them and stop staring as my dad stopped and spoke to the man. I don't know what he said but I heard the man call after him saying "God Bless you sir." I think I was more impressed with hearing someone call my father "Sir" than I was with the God bless you part.

Jeanne Sweeney

Her letter jiggled my own memory.

Dear Jeanne,

I could always tell it was Friday when I walked in the door after school because mom was busy fixing codfish balls and the whole house reeked. They tasted okay when cooked but the odor took some getting used to when she was mixing the ground up codfish with flour and water I guess. I couldn't watch so I am not sure,.

I can't remember ever buying fish at the market. Maybe because we lived about half a mile from the Oregon slough in North Portland and often came home with a string of crappies (that is pronounced as croppies) ' sunfish , bluegills and catfish. Brother Albert once brought home a four foot sturgeon from the slough but I suspect somebody gave it to him. It was so ugly mom would not cook it and dad buried it in the backyard..

Albert also brought home what he swore was a big beef roast he said some guy at the slaughterhouse gave him. Mom suspected it was horse meat and would not eat it though she cooked it for us. It was pretty hard to chew. She loved horses and often talked about grandpa's carriage horse, Old Ben. She would starve before she would eat a relative of Ben.

Friday was my favorite school day in spite of the cod fish balls because next day was Saturday and I could head down the hill and go fishing.

JR

Jerry can be reached at wseditor@robinsonnews.com