I was born in 1940. And I remember a little bit from WWII that apparently I used to get hysterical when there were blackouts so everybody else would go down to the basement but my grandmother who was a very big soft woman with a very big soft bed would refuse to go down to the basement. So I would be in bed with Bubby feeling very safe.
I also remember going with her to Coney Island. My grandmother was very buoyant in the water she was a big woman as I said and she was a good swimmer, which was unusual for her generation. And she would go on her back and fall asleep in the water at Coney Island and a grandchild was always detailed to be with Bubby so she wouldn't float out to sea. And then she would wake up and then we would go back into the schvitz baths. And I remember when I was really young being in the schvitz baths with my Bubby and all of her friends all of whom were fairly large and they would tell dirty jokes in Yiddish to each other and they would laugh and their bodies would to such an extent that you just saw these masses of flesh and I was very young; it scared me. And many many years later I thought how free and wonderful these women were to not care what they looked like. What a great thing to grow up to be a shameless old lady. I'm still aspiring to get there but every now and then I think, Oh Bubby would be proud.