It’s perfectly understandable to me how haunted houses can exist. We have the idea of “ghosts in the machine,” “Artistic DNA,” and omnipresent-but-unspecific “vibes”- why not “ghosts in the interior design?” Ghosts that can follow a person or people from place to place, creating the sense of where they’ve been before, and writing an intangible living atlas in the frontal lobes of Those Who Know.

The house where I was raised is a minimum hour drive away and five-plus years back in time from being swiftly and silently bulldozed. My parents now live in an ivory tower of an apartment, nineteen floors above center city Philadelphia. They brought some of their favorite decor from their old house was well as my Bubba’s similarly-leveled house, and have moved into an apartment roughly a twentieth the size of where we used to all live together.

Ghosts in the decor, then, is the only way I can explain spending a few days in the cluttered but cozy guest room and walking out the door in the morning expecting a staircase to the right. It’s the only way I feel like the living room of the Philadelphia high-rise has a piano and fireplace in it that I can feel but not see in their decor of wood, white, cream, gray, and Judaica.

Everything about our old house is there, tucked under the carpet or back in a closet, felt but not seen until you cross the threshold out to the hall. Then I am most certainly in Philadelphia.

My sisters, two out of three of our spouses, and I had some time to kill when Steph- my older sister whose spouse hates Philly- reveals she’s never been to Reading Terminal Market. Emily and I have some personal missions to complete while we are in Philadelphia, three of which can be accomplished in the rabbit warren of stalls and stands.

“Here’s the thing” my little sister Lauren warns Steph as we scuttle across Race Street on the edge of Chinatown. “It’s a lot in there, and it’s not all there all the time. You can totally get lost in there. If you’re cool with being confused in tight crowds, it’s fun to explore. Just keep your purse closed- there’s pickpockets.” I nod my agreement as we walk. I had accidentally thwarted a pickpocket the last time I went to RTM- it was a man pretending to be blind who kept trying to reach into the purse of a woman standing in front of us. I jogged his arm, his hand tugged on the bag, and the woman caught him. He ran out ahead of us, his cover blown.

The door we chose into RTM puts you right where you wanna be- in smelling range of fresh coffee and cookies, and within sight of an Italian bakery to the right and chocolatiers to the left (where else can you get anatomically correct hearts, kidneys, lungs, and livers made of chocolate for Valentines Day?) With minimal time before we need to head back and change for synagogue, the gang split up. Em and I bee-lined for the cookies first and a mixed half-dozen of the fanciest flavors we could find. Lauren and her partner chaperone Steph through the overwhelming aisles, and our parents seek out the Cajun place for lunch.

Cookies. Score.
Whiskey from a place that specializes in spirits from Pennsylvania- a bit less successful. I discover the bottle I’m looking to replace was more precious than I thought- they only had six bottles back then, I bought one, and now can only get the whiskey by making a pilgrimage to the distillery itself. There’s no way in hell I’m talking anyone into that schlep, so I comfort myself with three pickles and four donuts from Beiler’s, confident at least I won’t need to check my luggage for one more flight.

We sit in the privacy of the noisy food court section, and Lauren gets down to brass tacks. “The world is getting scary, time is ticking, and the Strenger children need to think of the future.” We discuss the Canadian border and the barriers to Emily and I moving back East in the genial-but-tense way we’ve learned to express what is Important But Not Yet Critical.

“In all of our pictures together as kids” I told a friend of the family earlier, “my sisters and I all have the same faces we do now. Lauren looks grumpy and worried, Steph looks professional and all-knowing, and I just look like I’m happy to be there.” I’m seeing it again around the table over Cel-Ray and corned beef. Lauren raised the issue with that Gentle Urgency we all understand from our parents house. This isn’t a problem yet, but it may be before too long.

Steph listens quietly, active listening skills engaged and lips slightly pursed in thought before presenting her thoughts, and I measure my words out of habit. Middle children get talked over a lot and I’ve long since learned I need to make my words heard AND make them count. No need to guess what one of my pet peeves is.

The arrival of our parents cuts the conversation short. “We’re heading back now to get ready for services” my dad says. “It takes me a little longer to walk these days.” Steph and Lauren agree that’s times up and they need to head back- Steph is staying at Lauren’s place, so they have a bit of a drive in addition to getting dressed into their Friday night best. Em and I, however, have one last thing to attend to in the Market before we head back. It’s not a long walk for us, so we have a bit of time.

As the family disperses, Em and I gather up our purchases and slip off around the food court toward Molly Malloy’s- the beer and sports bar in the market. As many times as I’ve been in RTM, this is a new one for me as I’m generally not a sports bar guy. Besides, I like grabbing bottles of local brew to go and sipping them in comfort at home. Time is of the essence, though, and Emily and I both need to decompress after the family chat.

Good rule of thumb for going into bars- if you see industry people drinking there, it means the bar is cheap, at least tolerably good, and run by good people. Cooks, bakers, chefs, servers and the rest of us don’t drink where we can’t afford it, where the drinks suck, or where we need to deal with stuck-up bullshit. If the members of one of the most high-stress industries in the world come there to decompress and relax after a shift, that’s a good sign. Provided, of course, you don’t come in looking to start trouble.

As we slip through the small swinging gate into the designated bar area, we see tables, chairs, LOTS of Eagles regalia for their soon-to-be-victorious Super Bowl trip… and one guy at the end in a chefs coat, a sushi cap, and clogs nursing a cocktail while watching something on his phone through cheap wired headphones. It’s not like we had time to wander anywhere else, but the insurance of quality is appreciated.

We snag a two-top not far from bar and a cheerfully intense server takes our order- two Yeungling’s on draft. Dating back to 1829, Yeungling out of Pottstown, PA bills itself as America’s Oldest Brewery, and by rights a Yeungling Amber Lager should be treated as as much a hallmark of East Coast food as New York bagels, Maine lobster roll, and Philadelphia cheesesteaks. This is where you get the good stuff.

Everything about it was right. The beer was cold and clear. Em and I were in one of our favorite places in the world, cozy in our fuzzy Irish hats and sweater- wool made for the weather. There is a lot of excellent beer in Portland, many of our favorites, but none of them are Yeungling. “It’s clean” Emily says, trying to put a reason to it beyond “it comes from where we do.” “It’s malty, but also refreshing.”

“It’s quaffable” I put in. “You can sip it or chug it and enjoy it the same.”
“And it’s coppery”- Em concludes, nursing her pint as mine half vanishes. “Not just in color but in flavor too. It’s clean, but it’s like sucking on a penny in the best way possible. That kind of pleasant metal taste…”

The server perks up and puts in his two cents- “Yeah, when I was living in Ohio, friends would ask for me to bring back cases of Yeungs when I would go home. I never got it then, but now I do. You guys live out there?” When we reveal we live in Portland, it turns into the kind of quick and lively conversation that professional beer geeks love- “Oh, you guys have Rogue, they’re big time!” “Yeah, but it’s gotten to the point they’re overrated. Microbrews come up like mushrooms out there- I’d pick nearly any of them over Rogue…” Beer people are the best people, and Philadelphia has some of the best.

Emily and my decision to move to the West Coast was great for us. Our careers are doing well, we are putting down roots, and connecting to our communities. That’s all necessary if you ever want to stay somewhere long. Its drawbacks are clear though. There is a price to be paid in more than beer and cheesesteaks. Despite our best efforts, family news comes fourth-hand, and outside our ability to do anything about it but wait for the next trip home and hope nothing- or not much anyway- has changed.

Out into the wind and wet, Emily and I hustle past the familiar red letters of Wawa and the smell of coffee to my parents high-rise. We’re going to synagogue tonight to see my mom light the candles. Those things, the prayers, the tradition, those change slowly.

Stay Classy,