Introducing the Grant family. I was very young, well a teenager, when I first came to learn of the Grants in the neighborhood. We never really knew them deeply, just that so many neighbors wanted to know them better and better. They were the talk of the town and so it seemed, the talk of the nightly news. “Tear down this wall Mr Gorbachev” was exclaimed on the television from our great leader President Reagan and next the finish of the stock market and finally, “that’s the way it is and good night.” The pressure cooker is heard simmering ready to give way at any time and the sound of ice hits the bottom of the glasses, now I know that dinner time has come and the news will be switched on and again three times each half hour for all we knew was network news and the Grant family.

The Grants never moved. The family was mentioned at the dinner table as ruining our lives yet we needed to know them better to survive. It seemed all so crazy. They said it was a decade of decadence and overabundance of the self. The Grants wanted to be a part of family and we were told they would come, but at a trickle.