My grandmother Louise was a school principal in New York City. The job is tough and you weren’t always dealing with the most well behaved of children. One disgruntled kid managed to get a copy of the key to the family apartment at 500C Grand Street. The kid broke into the apartment when nobody was home, went into a back room and ransacked the room. It was an odd crime or at least an incomplete story regarding why he did it but the most likely reason was that he was angry with the principal. When the police arrived they entered the apartment and looked at the main room with clothing strewn on the floor, papers scattered everywhere, books in makeshift piles, and general anarchy in the main room and they said “Man, whoever broke into this apartment really did a number on it”. My grandmother then needed to correct them that the criminal hadn’t broken into the room they were looking at and the mess in the room was normal before pointing out the criminally messed-up room. So at a minimum I have heredity to thank for being a bit of a slob and packrat. I have been requested to review the items at my parent’s basement in Newton ASAP because they now have a dumpster in the back yard that is ready to junk items that are no longer necessary. The effort is part of a Feng Shui quest by my mom that may have been brought on in part by the planned arrival of the next generation of Housmans. Make way for Madeline.

Apparently Alice also had a run-in with the police one day. She had come home to her apartment to find that the door was empty. Since she was afraid that there might be a dangerous criminal inside she called the police and asked if they could go inside to make sure it was safe to enter her home. The police carefully entered with guns drawn and peered around. A minute later they came back out with a sorry look on their face. They told her “The good news is that whoever broke into your apartment isn’t there anymore. BUT the bad news is that they stole your television and your VCR." Alice then had to inform them that she didn’t own a television and VCR.