My Turn: Time traveling back to Elmont in the '60s

When I was growing up in Elmont, I became good friends with a girl two doors down from us, Anne Marie. We were the same age and went to school together.

Anne Marie and I hung out together after school, walking to the neighborhood Carvel ice cream store while dreaming of The Beatles and boys. We divided our time between her house and mine, and we spoke to each other on the telephone for hours at night. (Our fathers complained about the phone bills because in those days local landline telephone call charges added up.)

My mother was a stay-at-home mom who cooked multi-course Italian meals every night, from a variety of fish and pasta dishes to meats, vegetables and salads.

The years went by and we graduated high school and celebrated by going to see the 1967 movie “The Graduate,” which had just come out in theaters on Long Island. We had finally “come of age.” But we went our separate ways, off to different colleges and different dreams.

Years later, after we had both married and had children, we reconnected. Anne Marie now lived farther out on Long Island, in Hauppauge, while I was in North Bellmore.

In those days, my mother, who was by then alone, would occasionally spend a week or two with my family. Most nights, she would do what she knew best — cooking.

One evening, I could smell the wafting aroma of lemon sole being fried in the kitchen. It was a familiar smell but one I hadn’t created myself in the kitchen. Anne Marie happened to call me. I always enjoyed our talks, and I found myself lounging in the bedroom across the bed, just like I did as a teenager, while on the phone. After all, Mom was doing the cooking!

I happened to have the radio on in the background and it was tuned into an oldies station with music from the ’60s, when we were teenagers back in Elmont. The smell of my mother’s cooking, the oldies music playing — and the friend from childhood talking with me on the telephone (now a portable landline) came together and suddenly hit me with déjà vu! I was instantly catapulted back to my teen years in Elmont!

Who would believe it?

That moment in time was recreated by pure chance. I couldn’t have planned it that way. I interrupted our conversation and marveled breathlessly to Anne Marie and then went into the kitchen, carrying the portable phone with Anne Marie still on, to tell my mother. They went about their business, seemingly unfazed, as if they were actually back in time, but I knew that the moment was extraordinary.

No matter that I was nearly a middle-aged woman with grown kids and a lot of living behind me, wonderful and not so wonderful. That recurrence in time was precious, even though it passed as quickly as it came.

Mom died months later, and within a few years my friend Anne Marie was also gone.

 Gloria Schramm

 North Bellmore