My oldest brother was one of those children who looked through adults with his steady gaze, which made many adults uneasy.
My parents had a neighbor, a regular Gladys Kravitz-type who was always looking out her side window at my parents’ house, waiting for someone to appear so she could make remarks.
One day she saw my mother and oldest brother, who was maybe eight years old at the time, go out to our backyard. She appeared at the backdoor, pushed it open, and immediately started talking at my mother.
“I see you haven’t had the hedges trimmed this month. They are a mess. They are on your property….” Her sensible black shoe hit a tuft of turf and a long green juicy bit of wild onion grass bent over the loose stocking around her thin ankles.
“Wild scallions!” she exclaimed.
“Those aren’t scallions,” commented my brother in his mild, soft voice. He looked at her brightly, corner of his mouth lifting upward “those are rapscallions.”
“Well, yes, rapscallions!”
From that day on my parent’s neighbor called scallions “rapscallions”.
In fact, I tell this story so often that tonight when I was preparing dinner I went to grab some scallions out of the freezer. To my delight I read the re-labeled bag, “RAPscallions.”
Blood runs thick in my family.
My parents had a neighbor, a regular Gladys Kravitz-type who was always looking out her side window at my parents’ house, waiting for someone to appear so she could make remarks.
One day she saw my mother and oldest brother, who was maybe eight years old at the time, go out to our backyard. She appeared at the backdoor, pushed it open, and immediately started talking at my mother.
“I see you haven’t had the hedges trimmed this month. They are a mess. They are on your property….” Her sensible black shoe hit a tuft of turf and a long green juicy bit of wild onion grass bent over the loose stocking around her thin ankles.
“Wild scallions!” she exclaimed.
“Those aren’t scallions,” commented my brother in his mild, soft voice. He looked at her brightly, corner of his mouth lifting upward “those are rapscallions.”
“Well, yes, rapscallions!”
From that day on my parent’s neighbor called scallions “rapscallions”.
In fact, I tell this story so often that tonight when I was preparing dinner I went to grab some scallions out of the freezer. To my delight I read the re-labeled bag, “RAPscallions.”
Blood runs thick in my family.
 Rapscallion-in-Chief. |  Frozen rapscallions.... |
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