my family is pretty well-known in our old hometown, though i suppose everyone is well-known in small towns.

my aunt and uncle own a lumber company. it's the kind of business that sons inherit, and my cousin josh will be owner one day. some of my early memories are playing house with the floor models of doors. i liked to lock jay out. everything was absolutely fascinating--toilet models, chandelier models, lots of metal and wood products. it made me feel important to hang out in the office. i think my aunt kept cookies in there.

my grandmother worked for the local credit union. all of the teachers banked there, and sometimes my grandmother gives me updates on the first-grade teachers. before they remodeled the office, a poster hung near the bathroom that said something like, "nothing can hide the stink of smoking." her boss gave us candy. even now, the employees there know how sandra's grandchildren are doing. they are trying to refinance my car.

at his old company, my grandfather invented some method of doing something more efficiently. i found out from a yellowed newspaper clipping buried in a scrapbook. he worked in an office with a leather chair and globe-shaped paperweights. i was vaguely afraid of the building and its mod-looking carpeted chairs in the lobby.

before i was born, my mother was a real estate agent. she made commission from the house my parents bought, the house where i grew up.

every friday night at a local restaurant called garfield's, they had a macaroni-and-cheese special. we ate there a lot--macaroni, chocolate milk, and muffins from the bread basket. sometimes the whole family would be there, sometimes just a few of us. we knew everyone in the restaurant at any given time, including the owner, who was greek and gave us chocolate bars.

during a family dinner--the kind where everyone came--i decided i wanted to dance. i decided that the family at a table around the corner would be my audience. they had two daughters. i squirmed out of my chair, meandered over to their table, and began to dance. the parents seemed a little mortified, but i wanted to be a star. so i spun around like a ballerina and squiggled a little, then ran away. and then i came back. five times. the girls began to say, "uh-oh, mom, here she is again." until finally, the mother said, "excuse me, our daughters are trying to eat and you're disturbing them." so i ran back to the table and stayed there.

garfield's had mirrors on the ceilings. jay and i would make faces at them all throughout the meal.

eventually, garfield's changed ownership, though i think it's a family business. my mother still maintains that you're utterly alone in ashtabula unless you have family. your family is your best friend.