Magical Michigan Avenue

Illustrated by Val Dray

Written by Jay Banfield Text and Design by Cooper Ferrario

To Edie “Gram” Dray and her generation who taught us what it means to truly love.

“OK little chihuahuas, it’s time for bed,” said Dad as he approached the Santa table.

They got the table for Christmas the year before, so the name made perfect sense - to them.

“Can we have ten more minutes, please?” asked the children all together.

“I gave you ten more minutes... ten minutes ago,” came the reply.

“PLEEEEAAASSSEEE, Daddy,” pleaded Grace, the oldest of the three.

“Sorry. It really is bed time,” the patience in Dad’s voice starting to wear thin.

“Can we hear one story before bed?” asked Aidan, trying out a different strategy to keep the night going.

“One story,” answered Dad, who couldn’t ever seem to resist his kids.

“But if I don’t hear you in the bathroom in the next 20 seconds...

The Tickle Monster is going to get you.”

squealed Dray.

Everyone loved the tickle monster, especially Dray, who was the youngest. The truth is, though, the Tickle Monster did tickle hard.

So while they all loved him, they were also a little bit afraid.

“The tickle monster tickles so hard,”

“OK, Dad said one story,” began Aidan, the wheels in his mind clearly turning.

“How about the story of the blue kangaroo?” offered Dray. “I love that one.”

“That’s a good one, but we want to go to bed as late as possible, right?” continued Aidan.

“Of course,” Grace answered.

“Well,” said Aidan dropping to a whisper, “then let’s ask Dad to tell us a story about growing up. Grown ups love to tell LLLOOONNNGGGG stories about themselves.”

“Deal,” agreed Dray and Grace quickly before they all took off for their bedroom.

“It’s late,” started Dad as he settled into the rocking chair. “We need a shorter book tonight.”

“Instead of a book, maybe we can hear a story about where you grew up,” suggested Aidan.

“Let me think,” said Dad, caught a little off guard. After a couple of seconds, he took a deep breath, put up his feet and settled more deeply into his chair. “I think we can make that work.”

Aidan smiled mischievously as he looked out of the corner of his eye at Dray, who was trying her hardest not to giggle.

“My great-uncle Tony and great-aunt Camille bought a house on Michigan Avenue in a town called Somerville, right outside of Boston. The house was chocolate brown with white trim all around,” began Dad.

“Sounds like a chocolate cupcake. My favorite,” said Dray.

“You know, it WAS like a chocolate cupcake. Like a cupcake, it looked simple, but it was a most wonderful thing,” continued Dad. “It was magical.”

“Were Uncle Tony and Aunt Camille magicians?” asked Aidan hopefully.

“No, they weren’t magicians,” answered Dad with a chuckle. “The house was magical.”

“The house?” asked Grace.

“Yes, the house,” said Dad.

“How?” asked all three at the same time.

“No one knows exactly how, but I have my ideas,” said Dad as he leaned back further in his chair.

“Aunt Camille had 5 brothers and sisters. One of them was your great grandmother, Edie.”

“Gram!” shouted Aidan.

“Yes, Gram,” Dad continued. “And in our family, whenever anyone was in trouble, whenever anyone needed a place to live, they came to Michigan Avenue - and they stayed as long as they needed to.”

“Aunt Camille and Uncle Tony must have really loved their family,” said Grace in amazement.

“Yes, they did,” agreed Dad.

“It was a special kind of love... the kind of love that makes a house magical.”

“How long did you live there, Daddy?” asked Dray.

“I lived there for 14 years, on the second floor with Gram,” Dad replied, as a smile stretched across his face at the memory. “Sometimes with my mom, sometimes with my cousin and her son... but always with Gram.”

“Gram! Like graham crackers,” the connection making Dray proud.

“Yes, like graham crackers,” laughed Dad.

“That’s where your grandmother’s name came from. First there was Gram, my grandmother, and then there was Graham Cracker, your grandmother.”

“Did Graham Cracker grow up on Michigan Avenue too?” Aidan wanted to know.

“She did,” Dad continued. “Everyone in our family lived there at some point. It didn’t matter how many people were there at any time - and sometimes there were a lot. Michigan Avenue always grew to the exact right size.”

“Was that part of the magic?” asked Grace.

“Yes, it was,” said Dad. “The house became whatever people needed it to become. And for all of us, it was like the fanciest hotel.”

“Like every fancy hotel, Michigan Avenue had a great tailor to help take care of its guests,” continued Dad.

“Who?”

“Gram. Gram was always sewing. She could make anything. She could fix anything. And she could alter anything.”

“Alter? What’s that?” asked Dray.

“That’s a fancy way of saying that she could make your clothes fit exactly the way they were supposed to fit,” answered Dad. “We always had the nicest clothes, as if they came from the fanciest designers. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had everything we needed. That is another thing love can do.”

“What else?” asked the kids more excitedly.

“Well,” said Dad, rocking gently. “I remember that no one ever left Michigan Avenue hungry. No matter what time you came, and no matter how many people showed up, food just appeared.”

“Was it a restaurant…like Tacolicious?” asked Dray hopefully.

“Kind of,” answered Dad, looking hungrier by the minute.

“Except Michigan Avenue was an Italian restaurant, with piles of raviolis, stuffed peppers, eggplant parmigiana and pizzelles. It was better than any restaurant in Boston’s biggest Italian neighborhood. And you always went home with bags of leftovers. It was an insult if you didn’t.”

“I would never do that,” AIdan offered quickly.

“Good,” said Dad with a smile. “Aunt Camille would have liked that.”

“A hotel, a tailor, a restaurant. That sounds like a lot of work.” whispered Grace.

“It is,” said Dad.

“But we had a lot of fun too,” added Dad quickly.

“It takes a lot of work to hold a family together.”

“Aunt Camille and Uncle Tony worked in the theater. They loved the theater business, and they wanted us to have access to the finest the world had to offer. They wanted us to have culture.”

“How did they do THAT?” Aidan wanted to know, obviously thinking that didn’t sound like fun.

“Aunt Camille and Uncle Tony would sneak us into the back of the theater,” said Dad as he tiptoed toward the back of the bedroom. “If we stood absolutely still, and didn’t say a word, we got to see the best plays and musicians in all of Boston.”

“And Michigan Avenue…Michigan Avenue would turn into the grandest theater you have ever seen. Uncle Tony ran the theater, and there was always seating right at the very front.”

“Graham Cracker says Aunt Camille used to let kids roller skate through the house,” exclaimed Aidan.

“That was before I was born, so I don’t know. I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Dad with a chuckle. “What I do remember were dance recitals. I think Aunt Camille’s real dream was to be a ballerina. She would dance with all of her nieces and nephews when they came to the house.”

“Did you dance, Dad?” asked Aidan.

“I wish I danced like you did with your sisters, but it was mostly my cousins,” answered Dad. “What I loved to do, like you, was play baseball.”

“Day or night, Uncle Tony sat on our front porch and listened to every Red Sox game on his black transistor radio,” began Dad.

“Transistor radio? Is that something you connected to your iPhone?” asked Grace. You could see Dad struggling with how to explain THIS.

“Well,” he started, “that’s an even longer story. Let’s just say it was a small black box with long metal poles sticking out of it that you had to move around to hear the game.”

“That’s weird,” observed Aidan.

“Yes,” nodded Dad, “but it let me listen to every minute of every game. And after each one, I spent hours replaying the game, play by play - just me throwing the ball off the stairs in front of our house. There were rules that only I knew about - in my Fenway Park.”