The Pretzel

In July, 2001, just two months before that calamitous event which changed American

life forever, Grandma Sandy and I visited our children and grandkids in Wynnewood, a

charming suburb just west of Philadelphia.  Bill and Laurie lived on Overbrook Parkway,

a couple blocks from a pocket of small business commercial stores at Manoa and

Haverford roads.

One morning, while four year old Stevie was in camp, I took two year old Ben for a

walk, pulling him in a blue wagon.  Soon, he climbed out and wanted me to get in the

wagon so he could pull me, but then he tripped on the uneven sidewalk and skinned his

hand.   I applied pressure with my handkerchief and, at home, washed the wound and

applied a Band-Aid.

   

After picking Stevie up at camp I took the two boys in the double-stroller for a walk,

and we stopped in Howard’s Pharmacy on Manoa where Carol, the fountain clerk,

recognized the boys and called them by name.  We ordered a strawberry milkshake to

share, and Carol gave Stevie a cup to hold his pine cone that we had picked up along the

way. A teen-aged girl came in  for a large twisted pretzel which Carol heated up for her;

seeing this,  Stevie wanted a pretzel, but he wasn’t drinking his milkshake, and I said, no,

you can get a pretzel next time.  Stevie became angry, cried at being denied, and while

seated on the fountain stool began to kick me standing next to him.  I slapped his leg
with  each kick and told him, if you kick people they will kick back.  The tears flowed and
he told me he didn’t like me and “You’re not a good grandpa!”  Carol and the teenager,
both smiling,  glanced at each other,  and were obviously  watching how this conflict

would  resolve.  As I dried Stevie’s  tears,   he noticed the blood on the hanky from Ben’s

hand that morning. A spontaneous solution to the impasse presented itself, and as I told

Stevie what had happened to Ben, we moved on from the pretzel.