Until I was six years old, my grandma lived on Tenth Avenue in South Minneapolis in a one-and-a-half story stucco house. A hill rose up from the sidewalk, cut in by a steep set of steps, with a path of a few squares of concrete to up to the house. The front door was located at the side of the facade, which left room for an uninterrupted row of windows facing the street.

Inside the house, under the windows, was a long, narrow radiator. Several small ceramic pots of Grandma’s African violets sat on top of the radiator. The flowerpots were painted in muted colors – one lemony yellow, another minty green, and a third was creamy marshmallow white. To catch any excess water drips and drains, Grandma had placed old teacup saucers beneath each flowerpot.

The furry green leaves and soft purple petals of the violets thrived year-round at Grandma’s, with the afternoon sun of summer and the winter warmth provided by the radiator. There was also one larger, fancier pot in the mix, painted dark pink and white and embellished with a sweet, rosy-cheeked lamb figurine.

My grandma’s rocking chair was in the corner of the room, near the front windows. I remember cuddling up on her lap as we rocked and she read me books, told me stories, and sang to me. Her hand resting on the top of my head, periodically smoothing the wispy hair from my forehead to behind my ear.

One of my favorite songs in Grandma’s repertoire was the silly “Mares eat oats, does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy, a kid will eat ivy, too. Wouldn’t you?” I’d look over to the lamb lounging by her pot of violets and think that sometimes they might eat violets, but I knew that didn’t rhyme and would ruin the song.  “What a comical song,” Grandma would say at the end, with a laugh. Her resonant and jolly laugh seemed to roll slowly out of her belly and through her wide, smiling lips, straight to my ears, gently landing on my memory forever.

Sometimes Grandma and I would walk to Wilharm’s Drugstore up on 38^th and Chicago.  I lived about a mile from Grandma, so her neighborhood was less familiar terrain. This walk was an adventure, made even more thrilling if Grandma needed to mail something. Grandma always let me “do the honors.” I remember stepping up on the cement base that held the big blue box on the corner near her house, peering over the edge, grabbing the handle and sliding the mail down the chute. I’d let the door close gently, wait a few seconds, and open it again and investigate the darkness within the chute, just like Grandma taught me. “You want to be sure it all made its way down…” she would say.

After the mail drop, Grandma would take my hand and we’d continue our journey.

“How much farther, Grandma?”

“Well, let’s see. It’s five long blocks and two short blocks.”

That felt like an eternity to me. I wondered aloud to Grandma what we would have done if the mail hadn’t gone down the chute. I thought to myself that we would grab a long stick and shove it into the chute to free the mail, but Grandma said we would let the mailman know. That seemed easier than my plan.

“How much farther now, Grandma?”

“When we cross the street, it will be four long blocks and two short blocks.”

I tried to limit my inquiries to when we crossed a street, but sometimes those long blocks were so long, I’d lose my place and my patience. But Grandma never did. No matter how often I asked, she’d smile down at me and give my hand a squeeze and tell me the status of our journey.  We would chat some more until finally I spotted the traffic lights ahead and I knew we were close. “Almost there,” Grandma would say. I don’t remember what we did when we arrived at Wilharm’s.  Maybe Grandma had to pick up a prescription or a new bottle of mercurochrome (her go-to treatment for all injuries).

Last week, George Floyd stopped into Cup Foods on the corner of 38^th and Chicago where Wilharm’s Pharmacy used to be. Floyd was arrested for passing a bad $20 bill. He died after a police officer pinned him to the concrete sidewalk with his knee for more than eight minutes, the final two-and-a-half of which Floyd was unconscious. A week of demonstrations and riots has followed Floyd’s senseless murder. As people grapple with their anger, frustration, and sadness they are finding some peace and comfort at the site of the murder, calling 38^th and Chicago, “sacred ground.”

So much of South Minneapolis is sacred ground for me, not because of a tragedy, but because it’s intersections, sidewalks, and structures hold the memories of my childhood and young adulthood. As they covered the protests, every block the TV reporters called out as they stalked the demonstrators sparked a memory of an event or a loved one or a mundane bus ride, from thirty years ago. *  

I hope that the memory of this past week stays with us all and we get our acts together and work for real change. There will be both long and short blocks in the process. Hopefully, 38^th and Chicago will remain sacred ground for generations to come.

*Did it drive anybody else crazy that the LOCAL reporters called it Ni-COH-let Mall? It’s pronounced “Nicklet” and it’s only the mall downtown.