Her name was Dorothy, or Dora. Or, at least that was the closest proximity coming from her native Polish.
But before I get to that, let me expend a few sentences on “looking up”. Looking up to the both of you. Memory is a gift, and no gift is more treasured to me than remembering days when you were there, and your friends would come acalling to 25 Alston Avenue. I am sure there were more faces that are no more than a blur to me today. But then? Alan Cadan loved strawberries and sour cream. And then there was Bobby Galvin. There was one evening when he took Lynn and me out in his jeep… top down. Wouldn’t it be fun to pretend that the jeep had broken down on Chapel St, and then have me, the little kid, out on the street pushing the jeep along? Thankfully we were on a bit of a downgrade.
Yes, it was fun for me. Something that I will never forget, even though it may not be remembered by either Lynn or Bobby.
And so, Pancho. Dorothy. Looking back, we had a household staff! Sorta like West Wing, only better! We not only had Mommie Soph. We had a live-in maid. And then we had someone else to add supplemental hands to the necessities of the home. Enter Dora/Dorothy. She was Polish, and she conversed with Mommie Soph in the native tongue to both: Polish. And although there can be no pretenses about Mommie Soph being an “aristocrat”, Dorothy called Mommie Soph deferentially “Pani” (masculine form “Pan”). A Polish term reserved for respect to someone of higher station. Think “Lord” or “Lady”.
I guess it didn’t take long for Bobby, when visiting our domain, to keep hearing a volume of this pani, or that pani when he hung the moniker of “Pancho” on Dorothy. And it stuck.
Wonderful textures and tapestry of our life together.