For Anna

Sad news: one of my fondest childhood memories has passed away.

Anna Scaramuzza ran the little convenience store across the street from my elementary school, Lord Lansdowne P.S. The no-nonsense German woman with the white apron and frazzled, curly grey hair often wore a frown as she was beseiged every lunchtime and after school by junior and senior school kids clamoring for penny candies, powdered donuts, Mr. Noodles, and sandwiches. But even if Anna's mouth wasn't smiling, her eyes and her heart were. She passed away peacefully September 17, 2009.

The unassuming turquoise-fronted shop on Robert Street was simply known as "Anna's." The fixtures hadn't been updated since the days when the shop had been a general goods store. I remembered the geraniums and spider plants in the front window on one side, along with the assortment of toys, firecrackers, styrofoam airplanes, water pistols, and other awesome things she sold on the other. When you walked into Anna's, you knew you would come out with something special. I remember how I found a penny on the ground once when I was 6, and after school bought the yummiest lone Gummi Bear I had ever eaten. Anna was amused.

I remember how the older grade 7 and 8 kids would sit on the sawed off picnic bench leaning out front during lunchtime in the days before containment became the only means for schoolyard safety. That bench was a hallmark of seniority, and if you were sitting there, you were in the big leagues.

My first kiss in grade 7 was in front of that store. I remember spitting in mild disgust over the waist-high cinderblock wall afterward. (Sorry, first junior-high bf. You really just didn't do it for me. At all.)

Anna had a beautiful chocolate-colored short-haired Weimaraner-mixed dog named Cindy who grew fat, red-eyed and ill on the gummies the students fed her. Her offspring, Lola, faired no better. Nonetheless, the students mourned when each of these dogs passed. Smelly and chubby and obsequious as they were, they were a part of the legacy, fixtures in our quickly dwindling childhoods. I remember that Anna, though her dour expression did not show it, was sad when they were gone, too.

When I was in grade 7, Anna's husband, Luigi, died. He had left a donation to the school of a set of new encyclopedias (there was no Internet back then) and the students in the senior art classes were asked to sketch Anna's as a tribute. I remember sitting out in front of the school with my pencils and sketchbook, surrounded by my classmates, trying to get the details in the front window just right. Never mind that the lintel of the roof wasn't right; I just had to get those plants in. The details were everything. I would have drawn the colorful array of gummies in if I could. I even included a sleeping Lola, who turned out to be an amorphous grey blob in front of the shop.

To my great dismay, I wore down my turquoise pencil crayon coloring the place in, as well as my apple-red for the painted brick. I was so upset by the fact that my pencil crayons weren't being worn down evenly that I selfishly refused to lend out those two colors to anyone else. After all, what was I to do once I ran out of turquoise or apple-red?

Eventually, one of those sketches was chosen to honor Luigi's donation. Apparently, it was framed and is hanging in the principal's office. I've been told that picture was mine.

Anna will always be remembered among the students, parents and alumni of Lord Lansdowne as someone who not only provided us treats, but who also provided us a retreat from the drudgery of elementary academics and melodrama.

Anna's was a special place. Anna was a special lady.

She will be missed.