Uncle George, the patron saint of little girls, songs and dishes...

As soon as you could reach the sink, while standing on a stool, you were doing dishes in my family.

Every night we girls (there were no boys), would gather around the sink; someone would wash, others would dry and yet others put away. A game we often played after the dishes were done, was to blindfold ourselves with napkins and try to identify herbs and spices and foods by their smell. This game held endless enchantment for me and helped hone my olfactory sense to a high pitch.

Holiday Celebrations in our home meant people (lots of people), laughing, eating, singing and an unbelievably huge mountain of dishes, pots, pans and glassware. We would face this mountainous, messy party hangover with much sadness and trepidation, that much I can tell you.

Unless, of course, my Uncle George was in town; after meals, he would gallop into the kitchen and banish all of us girls with the whisk of a dishtowel that cut the air like a sword. We would sit in the dining room and listen while he washed, dried and completely put away every dish, pot and glass. He would vanquish, nosily, the after-dinner-dragon, whistling the whole time. Georgie's whistling would then turn into singing and everyone would join in. I can still hear all of those beautiful voices crooning old Irish songs, wartime love songs and show tunes.

The next morning amid the bustle for coffee, toast, eggs and rolls, we girls could hear my mother muttering "Now where ever in the world did that man put my...." It always took my Mother days to sort out where my Uncle had stashed all of her favorite kitchen tools. We would smile knowingly and sip our coffee in silence.