Fried Potatoes and the Evening Paper

The smell of frying potatoes wafting through 

the screen door is a prized memory from when 

I was six years old and living on Hinman Avenue.  

Dad, in his sleeveless undershirt, would have 

just finished mowing the front lawn with a rotary, 

push mower when Mom squeaked the screen door 

open and beckoned us to supper.  The screen door 

would snap shut behind her as quickly as 

a crocodile's mouth, and we would follow her 

into the kitchen.   

After supper, Dad popped the cap on a bottle of 

Budweiser, grabbed The Columbus Dispatch, 

and perched on the top, wooden step of 

the front porch.  He liked the sports page and 

the comics first, then he perused the rest of the paper.  

Often, on these summer nights in the mid 1940s, 

I sat beside him, wanting to lean into him so badly, 

but I didn't dare. He was not an affectionate man.  

I simply sat quietly, watching him read the paper 

and puff Lucky Strikes.  I don't ever remember him 

putting his arm around me, patting me on the head, 

or saying anything that suggested love.  He was 

as cold to me as a late-November breeze.  The 

closest he ever came to showing that he cared 

was when, occasionally, he would allow me to 

get behind the rotary mower and attempt to push it, 

which I barely could.  I pretended the handles 

were his arms, and hanging onto the handles was, 

I knew, the closest I would ever get to his embrace. 

---

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University. Nik is the author of twenty-five books. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, nominated five times for a Pushcart Prize, and twice for a Best of the Net award. His poems have appeared in such magazines as The Hong Kong Review, The Bombay Review, The Raven’s Perch, The Main Street Rag, Xavier Review, Taj Mahal Review, and Bellevue Literary Review.