Lammie

Her real name was Cerise Weinberger, but I knew here as "Lammie". I have no idea where that name came from.

Lammie was our next door neighbor in San Francisco. During WWII my mom taught remedial reading at West Portal grammar school, the local public school. So Lammie was part of my child care system. Lammie was perhaps 15-20 years older than my mom and her son Casper was off in the Pacific theater. I guess a surrogate grand-baby was welcome. Casper's wife, Jane, came to live with Lammie during the war also and I know my mom and Jane became good friends.

Lammie (well I suppose they were Casper's really) had Lionel Trains in her basement, the larger "Standard Guage" ones. Neat stuff to a little kid.

Later in life when I needed a security clearance it was always a bit fun to answer questions about "who can independently verify that you were born in San Francisco and lived at ..." with - well you can ask Casper Weinberger (who was secretary of health, education, and welfare at the time - his posting as Secretary of Defense came a bit later).

The Weinbergers were our next door neighbors, but they owned three house lots, their house was on the middle of the three lots. The lot between us had a tall hedge all the way around with grass in the middle. I was allowed to play there sometimes, but this was a privilege not generally granted to the neighborhood children.