For the first five years of my life, we lived above Grandma and Grandpa Bloomfield in their duplex at 220 N. Victoria. This had its advantages and its disadvantages. One decided advantage to our proximity to the Bloomfield grandparents was that they bought us a new TV in 1951. Not everyone had or could afford a television then. With our limited budget in those days, we were lucky.

However, there were ulterior motives behind the gift of this television set. Grandpa did not want a TV in his living room, though he did want to watch television sometimes. By giving us a TV, my grandparents had the best of both worlds: a TV to watch under the same roof without having to have an ugly “staring eye” in their own living room.

On Sundays when Grandma and Grandpa wanted to watch television, they came upstairs to us, entered without knocking and appeared in our living room. Before settling in to a comfortable chair, Grandpa would go to the TV, change the channel and turn up the volume. He never asked if we minded. After all, they said, they had given us the television. After a time, Grandpa would ask my mother where the rolls and coffee were?

In 1955 my grandparents sold the duplex and bought a house in the suburbs. That meant that we had to move, too. With a GI-loan and no money down my parents bought a little house at 1703 Juliet Ave. in St. Paul. Living in separate house did not mean, however, that my Grandma and Grandpa didn’t come for a visit on Sunday afternoons. Each week, without warning, they would show up for a visit. Although they now had their own TV set, it seemed that ours (i.e. the one they had given us) was better.

As there was no way of telling my grandparents that they shouldn’t come every Sunday, we began leaving the house after dinner on Sunday and returning sometime in the evening. Sometimes we just went for a ride in order to be gone when they came. Other times we visited my other grandparents. And sometimes we even visited friends. These people Grandma referred to as “co-called friends” because she was jealous. For once in their lives Grandpa agreed with Grandma on the subject of our circle of friends. This evaluation of our friends was one of the few things that Grandma and Grandpa agreed upon. Monday morning Grandma would call Mother and inquire in a reproachful tone of voice where we had been on Sunday. They had driven all across town to visit us and then we had had the audacity to not be home. Mother always said it would be better if they called first. They never did. When they realized that we weren’t going to give in and remain home on Sunday afternoon, they began descending on my uncle Joel’s family weekly.