Pammyloaf has new marching orders

Pammyloaf has new marching orders

Such a loving era that still lights up my memory bank, when the Goldsmiths and the Gilberts were two families on the same voyage.  Thanksgiving feasts, a well-preserved vacation at Montauk Point, visits back and forth in Jackson Heights where we first discovered each other, on to Syosset, Great Neck, Wilton, a few Fifth Avenue parades, and whether there was a good reason or not, we sat around tables and just plain adventured together.

Carol and my mother were, as my mother proudly reminded me after the Goldsmiths passed, very best friends, nudging each other on to taste life beyond the tribal necessities. Carol taught my mother how to drive, during the days when there was so much more to manage. They studied sculpture together with Louise Nevelson, before her fame caught on and she was enlightening adult ed classes on Long Island.  And, Art Goldsmith and my father shared spotlights in the photo kingdom.  They both knocked out words to fill pages in important places — Art guided Popular Photography to the summit, and by now you should know a little about my dad, if you’ve poked around my website.

A particularly delicious part of our bi-family fusion included us, the younger ones — Artie, Jimmy, Susie, Amy, and Steve and me.  While the grown-ups merged in the living room, we headed downstairs for the tv screen. Land of Giants … or maybe it was World of Giants, depending on who tells the story … was one of our favorite shows.

And that’s when Jimmy, six months my senior, tagged me with a nickname that stuck: Pammyloaf.  As he explained to the adults: Pammyloaf means a loaf of Pam.

Pammyloaf pretty much disappeared  — until six years ago when I needed a username for NanoWriMo — that crazy ruckus when writers bury themselves in cohesive novel-making during the month of November. Write 50K words and you claim the prize — that you proved to the word-counters that you could write a book about the same length as Gatsby in 30 days.

I joined up as Pammyloaf in 2008 and wrote a gabby spoof about the college ratings game, “Seeking Number 20,”  and then crossed the finish line again with my nutty valentine to the USPS, “We’re Buying the Post Office.”  I took four years off and now I’m trying again in about 16 weeks. Username: Pammyloaf. (I also use it for my tweets.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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