Grandma's Gall Bladder

It would be hard to forget Sunday trips to my grandmother's. My father's mother on 18th Street in Manhattan, above the flower shop.

That I remember, my grandmother didn't have a television then. She did have her gall bladder though in a jar of formaldehyde on the hutch in the dining room. I don't know what custom required the surgeon in the 1950s to give her a souvenir, or proof, but I was told it was her gall bladder. The jar smelled, and I would guess it really was formaldehyde, and it really was a gall bladder. But was it hers?

Years later I gave that some thought when I read that at the Perdue chicken processing plant in Delmarva the gizzards were reunited with the chicken, but that they weren't necessarily from that chicken. Until then, I had never given that any thought.

So, I suppose it was my grandmother's gall bladder, because I do remember hearing that she was "going under the knife." This was the phrase I heard adults tell other adults when they were going to have to go into the hospital and they were having surgery for something. And gall bladder surgery was quite common in the 1950s. It didn't matter what the surgery was however, it was always, "I'm going under the knife." This made the listener ask, if they still had the nerve, what was it that was being done? If it was something pertaining to the female reproductive anatomy. and the listener was male, it was answered that it was a "female" procedure. That was code for "none of your goddamn business that I'm losing my uterus and the ability to bear children any further."

The gall bladder looked long, somewhat green, and floated in the solution which didn't look too clear. It may as well have been some kind of plant in an aquarium for what it looked like. I dared a quick smell of the jar, because it was foreign, I guess. Something like a strong alcohol smell, but also something distinctive. Nothing you could imagine as cologne, or anything like that. Not very pleasant. I think as kids we're really cats--we just have to see what something is about.

I definitely didn't inhale.

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