Between midnight and two I sat with Mother
going over beginnings with Benjamin
Vetter, who arrived in America
in 1852 with his brother Nace.
They came to avoid conscription
in some German Army. Or Prussian?
A rightful draft dodger -- my maternal
great grandfather.
The Teutonic peasant pomp in
a Bavarian coffeehouse in 1848.
Juice of the bean an incitation
to revolt against the Old Order
and the rye seeds hung from their teeth.
Great Uncle Louis was a cripple
(as they called them then) who worked
at Klotz Ice Cream parlor and boarded
at the Jefferson Street Hotel.
His miniscule memoirs chronicled
the failings and ecstacies
of Vetter Bros. Produce.
Copy each of The Courier-Journal &
The Louisville Times, and Edward Hopper's
illustrations for Hotel Management, 1924,
tucked under his arms as he limped
Jefferson's relentless grid,
the surfeit plan as
Louis thrashed at his station.
Delighted in Marconi, and spoke of
Tecumseh's curse on old whitey for
ripeness of an acorn, collective amnesia.
He planted corn when floodtide withdrew,
Six gross of gourds, hundredfold strawberries,
and jazz beneath the Gothic weight.
The children on Jefferson Street mock his limp.
"Mr. Vetter, how'd you get this way."
Your arms, strong as your legs turn to fins,
scales, paleness, in one year, how?
And the 'homely' factotum Mom spoke of:
Stella, whom no man ever married.
Who bossed herself and who resolved
to live out her days alone.
Refused to sweep another man's palace,
and didn't come to America to be your mother.
Benjamin went East, Nace went west, and
Stella set to weave her stronger thread.
Grandfather Vetter slices strawberries and oranges
for the children in the morning,
walks by their side to school each day,
because it's on the way to the fancy bar
where he'll stand all day talking politics
-- a hint of joy and bourbon in his breath.
12 May 1996 [done {for Mother}]
James A. Gardner
©1996, 2000, by Pen & Sword