The conversation with my 77 year old dad started with my mentioning the Mayflower Poultry Company, to which my dad began regaling me with memories of growing up in "Little Lisbon" in the '30's and '40's. The triple deckers, the tiny yards, the grape boughs, the laundry hanging from windows, I can attest to, from visiting my grandparents in the 60's on Sunday afternoons.
He and my grandfather used to walk to the chicken place. They usually had chicken several times a week. The factory was owned by a Jewish family and my Portuguese grandfather enjoyed bartering with them.
So you picked out your chicken from the gazillions in the cages, someone yanked the chicken out by the legs and weighed it (you paid for that weight, feathers and all), then they slit the neck and chopped off the head. ("Right in front of you?" I gasped. "Sure," my dad replied, "You needed to be sure they were killing the actual chicken you had picked out.") Then they threw it into a big container of boiling water ("to soften the feathers" my dad said, and I thought maybe to make sure it was dead...) then it went into some huge rotating machine with blades that de-feathered the thing, and then they gutted it, saving the goodies inside like liver, heart, kidneys, etc. for soup, wrapped in wax paper. I asked my dad how my grandmother prepared the chicken, and he said sometimes she'd roast it, but oftentimes it went further if she cut it up and made a stew with rice and some veggies. He said the fresh chicken was so delicious. So I asked him about Inman Square. He said he used to go see movies at a small theater that used to be there as well as buy clothes at a small clothing store. And get this! My parents got married at St. Mary's Church on Prospect Street! I cracked up at this, imagining my mom delicately lifting her gown to step gingerly past some poor homeless schmuck passed out next to an EWD dumpster.
And they had their reception at the Sheraton Commander Hotel where Poor Tony and his cohorts hang out in their boas and red leather jackets. Between his memories of East Cambridge and my memories of attending school in Brighton, this book has really made me smile.