What are the chances that the only two times I've heard the phrase "safe as house" Haley Atwell has been in the shows?
The first was 'Restless' a great spy TV movie from 2012, based on William Boyd's novel. A possible conquest at a bar full of British officers almost spills her drink but she catches it and tells him "no, problem, safe as houses."
Huh. It's a British idiom meaning houses are a safe investment. Thus, if everything is all right, then it can be said you're "safe as houses."
The expression comes up again in another production Ms. Atwell is in, 'Howards End.' The British excellence at recreating an era is again on full display here. The male lead. Matthew Macfadyen, playing the wealthy Henry Wilcox, tells Haley's character Margaret Schlegel that yes, such and such is a good company, "safe as houses."
I've always enjoyed Polish music, particularly that played by Jimmy Sturr and his orchestra. Jimmy has won so many Grammies for the category that they no longer hand out that award.
I don't need DNA testing to tell me anything about my heritage. I can go back far enough to know that my mother was born here, as were her mother and father, but they were of Polish and German ancestry. The other part of me is from my father, also born here, but from Greek parents. Thus, I claim three nationalities coursing through my veins, in addition to being native born.
I came to know of my mother's heritage somewhat late in life when she blurted out one evening that her father, whose name was "Cook" was really a name shortened from Cookorski, a Polish family from Chicago that settled in Tampico, Illinois, where my mother was born. If you know anything, you know Chicago boasts a good number of people with Polish ancestry.
Her mother's last name was Kirst, German. True Midwestern stock. Polish and German. My mother's oldest brother, Howard, who was in the same class with young Ronnie Reagan in Tampico, was a bit of an amateur musician. He had a band in Tampico.
When I was fairly small and on one of the trips with my mother to see her folks, we made our way to Tampico. I will always remember my uncle playing the banjo one evening as we sat on someone's steps. It was the liveliest music I had ever heard. I love the banjo (but not Steve Martin) because of that.
I don't know what my uncle played, or if there were others playing other instruments, but I remember it was fun. Everyone was enjoying themselves.
When my mother passed away the Catholic priest at the funeral home asked me if there were any poems or prayers that my mother liked and that I might like to be said. We think my mother was Catholic, but I never really knew for sure. I was baptized Greek Orthodox and went to a local Episcopal Sunday school, which I enjoyed because the Sunday school teacher once took us to the circus at the Old Garden. The era when there was a sideshow of bearded and tattooed ladies, midgets, dwarfs and tigers and some other "freaks."
Thus, we've got a Irish Catholic priest looking at my mother in her green suit with her greying red hair, and I'm convinced he thinks she was Irish, thus the poems/prayer question.
I very quietly thanked Father Hannon for his question, told him no, she didn't have any favorite poems or prayers, and that she was German and Polish, and that I doubted very much they wanted to play a polka or a march during the services. The poor man tried not to burst out laughing. He had to get away from me. I understood.
Safe as houses. I love the expression, Is there another one?
If you ever saw the first 'Home Alone' movie you might remember the scene where the mother somehow gets herself stranded somewhere and has to rely on the kindness of a polka band to get her back to the Chicago suburb where her son has been left, yes, home alone.
I don't think anything could be safer than to be in the back of a Polish band's truck with John Candy telling you everything will be all right. They're going to get you home safe to be with your son.
"Safe as being in the back of a Polish band's bus with John Candy." The phrase is a bit longer than "safe as houses," but just as secure.
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