The Boy from Arrochar

a Valentine to Serendipity

Gordon Silbey, 46, awoke that Friday morning in February, planning for a typical day at his job as Senior Road Test Officer at the Saint George Department of Motor Vehicles on Staten Island. He slept well, at least six solid hours, but still felt exhausted. It had been a long week covering for one of his fellow officers who had the flu. Gordon did nearly twice as many road tests than usual, leaving him on edge as he dressed in his DMV uniform, percolated his Maxwell House coffee, and buzzed the hairs on his chin with his Norelco floating head shaver, the same model that Paul Hornung of the Packers used in their TV ad.

Gordon looked out from his second-story kitchen window onto Doty Street in Arrochar (pronounced Ah-ro’-shar), on the eastern shore of Staten Island, the only place he’d ever lived, except for the time he was sent to the Bethlehem Lutheran Children’s Home in Fort Wadsworth from age eleven to eighteen. His parents divorced when he was four, and his mother, Thomasina, and Aunt Louisa, whom he called Lulu, raised him in that apartment. His father moved away to Cincinnati and had no part at all in Gordon’s life. When his mother developed diabetes and lost her eyesight, one of the sisters at their church, Saint Matthew’s, suggested the Bethlehem Lutheran Children’s Home, which could offer young Gordon the kind of support and well-rounded experience he might not be able to get at home. Aunt Lu visited him weekly with a pound cake she baked with Gordon’s mom, who could only be with her son on the holidays.

“One pound of butter, one pound of sugar, one pound of flour, and Lord knows every egg in the house!” Aunt Lu would laugh as she sliced up the weekly gift in the school kitchen and gave healthy pieces to the sisters. While in school, Gordon’s mom had to move to a nearby nursing home, and Lulu did everything she could to make up for her sister’s absence. On the weekends, she took Gordon on day trips to the city where they saw movies at Radio City Music Hall, then to Bickford’s for ham sandwiches; sometimes, they walked through Central Park marveling at the model sailboats in the pond by the Alice in Wonderland statue. Aunt Lu often liked to tour Staten Island with her nephew, where they’d dig for relics in Old Richmond Town and go to the zoo and Clove Lakes Stables. When he was fifteen, Gordon’s mother died, and after the funeral, Aunt Lu took him to the International House of Pancakes, where he ordered his favorite chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream. He held back tears until Aunt Lu returned him to the Children’s Home, where he cried into his pillow not to wake the other kids. He and Aunt Lu remained very close. He felt like he could tell her anything. She was the best listener, even if she often had no answers to his questions. The fact that she listened so intently was something that Gordon loved about her. When Aunt Lulu passed away during Gordon’s senior year of high school, she left him her apartment and her car. Returning home after his graduation was like walking into the past. Nothing had changed in all those years, save the addition of an Easy Boy recliner Aunt Lu purchased at E.J. Korvettes a month before she died.