sub fantasy

I woke with sub fantasies this morning. No, not submarines.

I wanted an Italian sub, one like I used to buy when I took my first job in the old Waltham Watch factory which had been converted into offices. This sub had Italian cold cuts, tomatoes, provolone cheese and pickles drizzled with olive oil on a big, fat section of Italian bread.

My mind drifted to the same place's meatball sub. How they flavoured those meatballs I will never guess. The tomato sauce that kept the meatballs warm soaked into the bread.

Then there's the wonderful lobster subs in a shop that no longer exists in Boston across from Harvard Medical Store. It was run by a large family both in number and size. They could move a line through the shop faster than any place I ever saw before and after.

That shop was responsible for the purchase of our Wigglesworth House.

My housemate and I, in need of that lobster sub, found a parking space on a dream street. Two rows of brownstones were fronted by tiny yards and bay windows. The only gray one had a for sale sign, we called the number and made a deposit. It had a tiny, tiny price, mainly because it wasn't a handyman's dream, it was a handyman's nightmare.

More than once on a Saturday when we were propping up load-bearing walls, tearing down others, stripping paint, plastering and painting we went back to the lobster sub place for lunch before it became a print shop.

I'd love to have any of those subs...but without buying another house dream or nightmare. Instead I'm settling for oatmeal cinnamon pancakes, which maybe some other time will also be a fantasy.