Old Angela Gaard

It was totally acceptable to knock on Old Angela Gaard’s front door—anytime, year-round—and ask for junk food. Sometimes it was candy, sometimes cookies, maybe popcorn, popsicles, or homemade fudge. You could just walk up her driveway, past her pink mailbox, and ask. 

But you couldn’t abuse it. You couldn’t go there all the time, and we kept each other accountable. A neighbor girl might see another with ice cream dripping down her wrist, chomping on a Klondike bar in the heat.

“Did you go to Old Angela’s again?” 

“So what? She always says to come anytime.”

“But you went yesterday.”

I sympathized. My house had none of the good stuff, and I would’ve gone to Angela’s every day if I thought I could get away with it. I’d do anything for the tiniest snack reward. Because they gave me a free Coke at the end of every game, I played full seasons of little league soccer, doing whatever I could to stay on the sidelines or away from the action on the field. I memorized the books of the Bible backward and forward in Sunday School for a single Hershey bar. That one took me weeks. Angela didn’t ask for anything, she just gave it away.

Her husband died. I don’t know when or how. It was like Angela came included with the cul-de-sac. She was the longest standing resident, and had always been a widow to me. Her son and two granddaughters came for weekend visits, holidays, and a long stay in the summer. He was divorced. My parents loved to talk about it.

The walkway leading up to Old Angela’s wide white Colonial was made of brick, not concrete. When you knocked on her door, also wide and white, she invited you into an entryway with a fancy rug and antiques. Angela was made of wrinkles, but dressed sharp and wore lots of rings, bracelets, and necklaces. Her gray hair, decades long, slow danced left and right across her back to the tune of clanking bracelets around her skinny wrists with each slow step down the hallway to the kitchen. “Wait here, sweetheart. I’ll be right back with something for you.”

Dark-stained stairs led to a second-story landing where a spindled railing ran the length of several bedroom and bathroom doors. Sometimes while waiting, hearing cabinets open and close in the kitchen, I’d see one of the granddaughters up there in her underwear, or wrapped in a towel. Hair soaked and piled on top of her head, getting going after sleeping late. Fresh make up after a nap, just before stepping into summer shorts or winter blue jeans. Now and then, if you knocked after dinner, Angela did hot chocolate and the girls might already be in pajamas. I’ve got a pirouette spun in a see-through nightgown saved on a worn-out videotape in my brain.

Not only was Old Angela’s mailbox pink, instead of the mandated black, it was the incorrect size, too. Everyone on Elmwood knew about the Neighborhood Association letter asking Ms. Gaard to address the situation, because she laminated it and taped it to the stop sign at the end of the street. The Association was sure it’s a simple misunderstanding. We all saw the second letter, too, which put a dollar figure on the violation and gave her a deadline, per the bylaws.

My mom and dad admitted it was a dumb rule, but said Old Angela still had to follow it. I think all the neighbors agreed. Everyone else had their black boxes in the proper size.

“You know about Angela’s old man and the mailboxes on Elmwood, right?” my dad asked. 

I knew the story. The dads on the street loved to tell it—they took turns at different gatherings.

“Yeah, you remember.” And yet, he went on again: “Angela’s dad came for a visit. She went and picked him up from the airport. Poor guy was half-dead and half-blind already by this time. When he gets out of the passenger seat in the driveway, after cruising the whole length of Elmwood, he pauses, looks back down the street, and says: Sweetie, when’d you get some many Blacks in the neighborhood?” 

But Old Angela’s dad didn’t say Blacks, and my dad didn’t self-censor, either. No dad on the street would have. I laughed when I heard the story, but didn’t eventually. Not because I was above it, I’d just heard it so many times. There wasn’t a Black family for miles, but the old man looked out on a blurry army of uniform mailboxes and felt outnumbered. Old Angela told her father to hush up, as the tale goes, but it’s unclear who first shared the story and made it funny.

The night before The Association deadline and fine, the mailbox was still pink, still tiny. Early the next morning, I heard my parents cracking up in the kitchen. My dad said he’d been outside with some of the other guys and their coffees. “Well, the mailbox is black now. Regulation,” he said. “But that woman’s got the new box flanked with a pair of twelve-foot tall inflatable flamingos.”

We walked down there as a family to check it out, a funny little protest, the first one I’d seen. Old Angela was serving hot Pop-tarts. Strawberry filling, white icing and sprinkles.