THE MALL OF MALLS

Most of my memories that float to the surface are from my early childhood – but every once in a while a delicious one pops up – that happened today while ordering Christmas gifts on-line.  I’ll never forget my first visit to a mall…and it wasn't near home.  Millville would not see a “mall” for a decade to come; in 1965 the only Mall I knew was on the Pall Mall pack! 

This adventure started when I began dating a “North Jersey” girl in college from a foreign land called Teaneck NJ.  Now this could be a suburb of Paris for all I knew because it was indeed over the big bridge from South Jersey, as they say.

Nancy invited me to come north for the weekend and go Christmas shopping at the malls on Route 4.  Being game just to be with her I immediately packed a small bag.  (Now until this invite shopping for me meant helping my Mom carry groceries from the A&P.   I would soon learn the true meaning of the term “shopping.”

We arrive in Teaneck on Friday evening – a town that didn’t look much different than Millville – except the homes were much closer together.  I could have fit three backyards here in my back yard.  This trip not only marked my mall introduction, but it was also a meet the parent’s occasion that made me sweat a bit.  Joe and Connie greeted us at their door with hugs.  And after we settled in and to my surprise Joe offered me a vodka martini – now this was so different from my rustic experience to date.  And it was just the beginning of the eye openers that were to come.  I would learn just how different North and South Jersey were and more than just 100 miles apart.

Saturday morn we went for bagels.  Bagel?  What’s a bagel I asked (really feeling like a bumpkin)?   Nan laughed and said, they Jewish and you are going to love them! 

When we entered Cohen’s Bagel shop I was taken aback.  It was filled wall to wall with customers.  Nan urged me to take a number!   “A number of what?” I replied now feeling really dumb.  She explained that’s how they knew who to wait on.  I was astounded.  In Millvile two ahead of me would be a crowd and I now had number 56 as they called 37.  Millville bakery folks always knew me – they needed no little paper numbers.  Life was crowded here for sure.

After bagels, lox and cream cheese – which I had to admit were very good but would take some getting used to, we left for the malls  a few miles away.  I have never seen so many cars in my life.

Route 4 was a thoroughfare girded on both sides by enormous parking lots surrounding warehouse size department stores – all the big names I had read about, Macy’s, Bamberger’s, Lord & Taylors – all familiar  except the one we pulled into – Alexander’s ! 

Now for a real surprise in the 500 car parking lot there was not a single open space. 

Cars slowly stalked behind shoppers leaving with their bags and pounced on their parking space as soon as it was vacated - as if it were a stake in a silver mine.  We cruised up and down row after row for ten minutes.  This was ridiculous in my opinion as I had never searched for a parking spot on High Street or even Landis Avenue ever – even at Christmas time.  Finally Nancy nosed into a spot just beating another shopper who tossed us a single digit salute.  Whew! Was all I could muster?

We entered the largest array of goods I had ever seen in one place beside browsing the Sear catalog. The jewelry counter alone was bigger than our W.T. Grants at home which was as close to a department store as Millville could get.  

Nancy was on a mission and knew exactly where she wanted to go.  I would need a map to shop here so I just gawked.  The place was packed and there was a din of mingled voices and sounds of ringing cash registers and an occasional PA announcement – “Would the owner of a Blue Ford…your lights are on…etc.

We repeated this routine from store to store, up one side of Route 4 and back – it took most of the day.  I carried bags and mumbled from time to time – Gee, Wow, and Duh.  Nancy bought stuff. 

On the drive home Sunday I pledged to myself to start reading the New York Times and Gentleman’s Quarterly in our college library – determined that I was going to be much more sophisticated and better dressed from that day forth.

SCHOOL CLOTHES

At this time of year – when the days start to shorten and there is a change in the air.  Less humidity and a search for a light blanket.  I always think of school with a tinge of sadness that those wonderful days which we tried to make last ended much much too soon.

And then I’m back in 1956.

Labor day was just two weeks away and I would be back.  And to be honest I missed school.  I loved school.  One night at supper Mom announced it was time for our annual “school clothes day” on High Street and we would have this adventure this coming Saturday. 

I got out the latest Sears & Roebucks catalog and perused the clothing section for some ideas on what was the cool styles this fall  (I ventured here only once a year for research, after many visits to the toy and sporting goods sections.)  To be “in fashion” pants had to have a small belt in the back that did nothing and shirts had to be with buttoned-downed collars.  I was ready to shop.

First stop was Freeman’s Shoes.  According to my mother school shoes had to be “sensible” which meant to her no Flag Flyers or loafers.  She always reminded me I had flat feet and needed “support.”  Support meant creepy looking tie up oxfords that workmen wore.  After Mother instructed Fred, the great shoe salesman in her parameters he showed my some Buster Brown’s that looked like official Girl Scout foot ware.  But there was no arguing.  I lied and said I “liked” the least cloddy looking pair and Fred escorted me to the box-like machine at the back of the aisle of countless shoes.  It was a fluoroscope and wa la  –  My clodhoppers fit.

Next we visited Jules Men and Boys.  And Jules immediately went into his high gear sales routine.  “Margaret, I’ve got the newest thing for Calvin, let me show you.”  Why I wasn’t a pertinent part of this discussion was always a mystery to me?   He laid out a bunch of shirts on the counter and uttered one word – “Madras”, making it sound as mysterious as its namesake in far off India.  To me the shirts just looked like plaid.  My mother made a small a-huh noise as if she knew what he was talking about.  I think Jules realized we both weren’t too impressed so he cranked up his pitch, “They are guaranteed to bleed on the first washing!”  “Hummmm”, my mother offered a bit dubiously.  (She had been wary of fabrics that “ran” in the washer her whole life, now this was a benefit?)

“Guaranteed!, Jules repeated.

“What do you think,” my mother asked me?  According to my research Madras was really in this sartorial season.  I replied, “I really like them.”  And she bought me 3, one in each color.  Next we needed a new pair of chinos.  (Jeans were never worn to school in my day)  Jules escorted us to the “chubby” rack.  I got shoes that I hated and shirts that bled – but this was the unkindest cut of all.  I would be in that size section until high school when, as grandmother Ethel noted, my “baby-fat” just melted away one day.

My school clothes shopping day was done after a trip to W.T. Grant’s for some new Fruit of the Loom underwear and white socks.  My mother had to be certain that if I were ever in a serious accident I would be wearing clean and non-holey underwear.  I was new on the inside my whole growing up life.

That night while we watched Lawrence Welk I tried everything on and modeled during the commercials.  I received kudos and assurances that I would be well dressed on my first day this year.

As for me, I couldn’t wait to see the shirt with the small buttons on the collar come out of the washing machine.

A SUMMER DAY

Dog days – that’s what grandmother Ethel called the days of August; hot, sticky, humid dog days.  I wondered just what that meant.  Did dogs have days?  Did my Spotty suffer because of the heat.  I knew he panted a lot that’s for sure.  Nanny said dogs pant to sweat.  I wondered?

When August rolled around I always started to wish that school would begin.  I waited the whole year for summer but when it came I did about everything I could do by around the 4^th of July.  

So the daily task -  how to fill my day?

Well, I thought, I could play war with Wesley across the street.  We would sit for hours in the sand.  (There were patches of white sand everywhere in south Millville)  And play with the 100 green rubber World War II army figures that I got for Christmas.  The set including a couple of plastic tanks, some tan tents and a bunch of other instruments of death!  I had painted many of my “men” with wounds of red nail polish – a garish color that my mom gave me because she hated it.

Wesley would attack my mud fortifications and I would beat off the Germans.  (My army set came with a like number of gray guys we called the Germans) Then my turn and I would attack his mud caves.   The Americans always prevailed. 

This activity got old real fast.  Imagination just goes so far and then fades.

What could I do now?  I know!  Ride my bike around the block and pretend I was a race car driver.  This two got old after about four or five revolutions down Stratton Avenue and back.

 

My day dragged on.  And then I got the best idea of the summer.  I am going to build a tree-house!

I asked my Pop Pop when he came home for lunch if I could use some of the wood from his pile of various boards that he seemed to be always collecting behind our big garage.  He said yes – but be careful of the rusty nails.  

Now rusty nails were an anathema in my world – one misstep was known to pierce the toughest sneaker and cause a dreaded case of lock-jaw – according to my grandmother who related tales of poor unwary kids who met untimely ends because they “did not watch where they stepped…especially by Herb's ugly woodpile!”

And so that afternoon I began and worked throughout the day.  

Wesley and I drew a rough “blueprint” of what I knew would become a masterpiece of  kid craftsmanship.  After much engineering discussion and false starts we began to build a clapboard and crooked box like room against the big ancient pine tree in my backyard.  (Editors Note: For practical reasons it was decided that the building team didn’t have the skills to build a tree house in the tree – both were afraid of heights – so it was to be a house by a tree.)

My plan called for a first floor  10 X 6.5 foot "house" with a hatch in the roof which would gain access to the “second story” observation deck.  This deck would be perfect to spy on girl neighbors and guard against attacks from imagined Indian tribes.

We toiled the rest of the day.

When Pop came home from work he took a look – he just smiled and asked if I needed some help?  

After supper he installed a door and a window.  Helped me with the hinges for the roof escape hatch and shingled the plywood roof.  We decimate his wood pile to my grandmother’s glee.   

With Pop’s help I now had Cal’s Clubhouse (the painted sign also read "For Members Only")   I spent the rest of August deciding just what the purpose of this “club” would to be.  And I spent many hours lying on my shack's roof, cap gun in hand,  surveying the neighborhood for invading armies.

Most of all I was pleased to report to Nanny Ethel that, to date, I had not stepped on a single rusty nail.

OLE RILE

RIP in peace Coach

  

Sad news today that a former high school teacher and my football coach passed away – and memories took me to MHS and days I thought would never end.

Bob Riley – known to Thunderbolt linemen as Old Rile was an enigma for sure.  A former Villanova Football All-American, noted body-builder and math wizard.  He was the logo picture for the Charles Atlas ads in the men’s magazines.  But hidden in that barrel chest was the heart of a poet.

One would never guess that he was math teacher from his appearance or manner.  He smiled too much to be mathematically inclined!  But he was and he loved figuring out equations as much as figuring a new defense against Vineland on Turkey Day.

I have expunged the memories of most of my year with him in Algebra II.  (The human brain’s survival instincts has a way of forgetting extreme pain and remembering just the good times)  I do recall I sat in his class fearing the inevitable embarrassment of being called on to make the trek of shame to the blackboard to solve an equation.  This torture usually ended with Rile whispering, “X times 2 over 9 plus B to the third power…you can go back to your seat now Cal.”  Even when I would call David P the “math shark” I still couldn’t remember how this stuff worked.

Rile’s work went far beyond his classroom.

He loved coaching football, wearing short short orange and blue gym shorts, raggedy sweatshirt and high-top cleats to football practice when it was around 30 degrees.

He loved writing, directing, producing, casting, lighting, staging his annual Senior Variety show which was a couple of hours of parodies about current events, TV and the movies.  (I played Mitch Miller, Happy the Clown and did my magic act in the 1962 edition)

He loved making his annual batch of “Riley’s Rotten Root Beer” (that was indeed one of the worst concoctions ever concocted) and he reveled in his secret formula that created an effervescence that could propel a bottle cap into orbit if the drinker wasn’t careful.

But most of all, I think he loved telling a good joke that came from his mental card file of hundreds of old ones discarded by Milton Berele and Henny Youngman.  He and I would play “yeah, but did you hear the one about…” for hours.  And he got laughs without ever telling a dirty joke.

He loved coming to our class reunions and getting a bit misty-eyed about what was and what might have been.

He loved doing a double jack-knife off the high board at the Holly City Swim Club to oohs and ahs of his aquatic pals.

But most of all Robert Riley loved sharing his life with young people. 

And his child-like wonder and enthusiasm rubbed off on his students and players and they loved their lives too - that was his reward.

Rest in peace my friend and mentor.  

I think I can hear you now…”Hey GOD, did you ever hear the one about the …  

THE LAST PITCH

Watching the 2015 All-Star game I felt a sense of pride to see one of Millville’s own Mike Trout, become the most valuable player of the game, the second year in a row – and that got me to think about my own love of baseball…

And then I was in my bedroom on Stratton Avenue putting on my Babe Ruth League uniform again.

As a kid there’s nothing more thrilling than being picked to play on a team (yes in those days one had to try out and “make” the team, unlike today when everyone gets to play, no matter what their skills) and getting that first real baseball uniform was a big part of the thrill.

Putting it on before each game was, for me, like the Matador’s ritual with the traje de luces (suit of lights).  I used to start an hour before the game just to make sure I got it right.  I tried to emulated the pros I would see on the few games that were televised in my day.  Today most pro players don’t worry too much about their pants or knickers (as they should be called) – they wear them touching the ground and in my baseball purest opinion they look awful – and hats with the flat brims?  Don’t get me started on that.

Anyhow…the ritual began after putting on the very uncomfortable, but required protective cup! The next step was to roll on the elastic garters – then the cotton under socks - then the stirrups, mine where lime green.  The next step was to turn the knickers inside out and step into them.  Slide them up over the socks and stirrups.  Roll the garters down and when the pants where pulled they made a nice fold at the knee – the way they were designed to be worn.  

I guarantee there is only two players in the entire major league’s that do this today.  Ty Cobb or Connie Mack would never condone a player to play on their team who did not know how to fix his pants.  

I donned the hot and scratchy wool shirt with the Millville National Bank by the Clock logo emblazoned on the front and my number 3 on the back (which I always requested in honor of the Babe, my hero).  Finally I stood in front of the mirror, tucked in my shirt, tugged on my belt and was satisfied that I looked like a baseball player.

I rode my bike to the field an hour ahead of game time for batting practice.  A sentimental trip as this was the last game of the season and the last game of Babe Ruth ball career – gads I was getting old!  And the whole season came down to this last game.  The Bank versus Coombs Dairy for the championship.

Brad my South Millville buddy was the opposing pitcher.  Off the field we were best friends but on this day we were serious enemies.  Brad was over six feet tall, lean as a bean poll.  And he had a wicked curve ball for a kid.  Matter of fact he had a bunch of pitches his dad Bucky had taught him.  He was a formidable opponent for this last game.

The game turned out to be a classic pitcher’s duel.  I batted clean-up and had one of the 2 hits Brad had allowed so far.  Our pitcher was doing great until the sixth inning when Coombs scored a run on a passed ball.  

As we entered the bottom of the seventh (at our age we only played seven innings) you could cut the tension with a butter knife.  The fans were very quiet.  Even my mother and grandmother who came to every game were frozen in place. And as fate would have it I came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded with Bankers.  

Sweat was pouring from everywhere.  Brad knew I was a good fastball hitter – but he also knew that I had trouble with the curve.  He grinned and threw a ball that took a minute and a half to reach the plate.  I watched it right into the catcher’s mitt.  Strike one! Called the hump.  Brad threw another pitch, it looked like it was straight for my head.  I backed off but it broke right over the plate.  Strike two!   That one really fooled me.  Brad’s grin turned to a sneer.  I hated that sneer.

 I took off my hat and wiped my brow as our third base coach called time out and waved for me to come down the line for a chat.  He put his arm on my shoulder and drew me close.  Brad watched and I’m sure he thought - a suicide bunt with two outs…NEVER...But what was the strategy?  He knew I was a good hitter and had a bunch of big homers that season.  But he didn't look too worried.

Coach whispered, “Cal, you’re on your own.”  That was it?  That was the plan???? 

Now I was really drenched.  Why me? was all I could really think to myself as I walked back to the plate trying to look as confident as possible.  I tapped the plate.  This was it.  My big chance to be hero or…bum.

Brad glared as our eyes met.  He did a double wind up and threw a side arm roundhouse change up sinking curve ball.  And just like Casey I missed it by about two feet and almost fell over.  And the game and the season was over.  

No storybook ending for me.  No trophy.  No picture in the Daily.

As the Dairy boys hooted and carried Brad off the field I had to look my teammates in the eye as we gathered up the bats and our gloves.  A couple of them patted me on the back.  My mom hugged me and went to her car.  But no one spoke a word.  And soon in the dwindling evening light I was still on the bench and the field was empty and it was time for me to go.

I peddled back home and went right to bed.  

I have learned over the years that life is rarely like the movies or a good book or the way we wished it would turn out.  Sometimes we win and sometimes, no matter how hard we try - we loose.

And guaranteed happy endings are why we write stories.  

BOY WITH A HORN

After a year of renting my golden horn a friend of my mom, who was in the antique business, gave me a silver cornet.  One that he attested had actually been used in the John Phillip Sousa Marine Band.  He was sure because it belonged to his dad who played it under the baton of the great march king.

This should have given me the motivation to succeed.  But after a year I was still just blatting through my lessons.

My grandmother enforced my half hour of practice before I could go out and play routine each afternoon.  Most times I would sit and just blow random notes occasionally turning a page in my lesson book in case she was watching.  I don't think my grandmother ever knew this scam - she never mentioned it, but then again, she was very cagey about me when I strayed from the straight and narrow.

The Bacon Elementary School band "played in and out" the students as they marched by grade to their weekly assembly, which usually entailed a long oration from our principal Mrs. McCorristin and a grainy movie about hygiene or which country exports tin. Principal Edith M. prowled the stage like a lioness alerting us, in her high warbling voice, to the dangers of running in the hall or disobeying our AAA Patrol Boys on the corners.

We usually gave the fidgeting audience a new number each week - I scammed this too.

Most times I just sat there with the horn to my mouth and pretended to play.  This was for two reasons.  One I was afraid I would make a mistake.  And two I was sure I would make a mistake and hit a sour note - therefore, I didn't hit any.  Every once in awhile the first trumpeter - a burly 8th grader would look over from his prime seat and say, "Hey Iszard give us a hand here, won't ja?"  I would blush and then continue faking it.

One day my mother informed me that it was time I moved up and took lessons off the number one music teacher in town.  The ancient Mr. Leski, retired big band professional.  I guess she thought this might spark my musical enthusiasm ?

My first lesson with him was so different. After brief introductions which focused on the fact that I had been "playing" for over a year, we began the $2 dollar torture. For one thing he didn't use a song book - he wrote out all of the music on small music sheets.  He gave me one and asked that I toot a "test" for him.  I will never forget trying to play "Home Sweet Home" in 3/4 time.

"NO...NO...NO, he wailed!  Timing my boy, it's all about timing"!

"You must put into you head these phrases; he wrote below the notes on my music.  GET IT - for half notes, SAN FRANSICO for quarter notes.  This will help you hold the notes the proper time for which they are written.  Here's how you should think 'Home Sweet Home' when you play the notes think:   Get it, get it, get it, San Francisco get it get it.

Get It?"

No I didn't get it.  But for the next two years I filled my repertoire, not with old standards, but with an array of musical mnemonics in hopes that I would someday gain a smidgen of rhythm = Result, to this day I still have no rhythm; ask my dance partners.

Fact my mom had to face  - I am not musical.

However, by the time I got to 8th grade and was anointed second, first trumpet - I was actually playing along with the band and enjoying it, to some extent - albeit our leader would occasionally caution me to play softer and not drown out the other 20 players.

After 8 years of trumpeting I graduated to Millville Memorial High School and went out for football that fall  - and never touched my horn again.  I limited my music to listening to the radio.

MUSIC LESSONS

For some reason (perhaps from an article in Ladies Home Journal) my mother got the idea that for me to be a well-rounded and cultured person I should play a musical instrument.  I would have rather played baseball but there was no arguing.  She had made up my mind on this.

But what to play was the key question?  One thing for sure a piano was out of the question.

So on a Saturday in the 8^th year of my journey through the vale of tears we took the bus to look at musical instruments at the Millville Music Center.  A center it was – record shop, sheet music, an array of rent to own instruments and in the rear of the small High Street shop were four small windowed rooms a bit bigger than phone booths used for music lessons.

We peered at the window display of instruments.  The sun bounced off the highly polished brass as I scanned the music making machines.  I imagined myself playing each one.  The saxophone – too many keys that had to be hard to play.  The trombone no keys that had to be hard too.  The clarinet looked sinister and not fun.  Ah, the trumpet – that had to be an easy one to play, just three keys. 

I blurted, “I think I would like to play the trumpet!”

We inquired within and the owner indicated that I should take a horn test first before we decide.  We were led to one of the practice rooms and told to wait for the teacher who would finish a lesson in a few moments.  Mom and I sat and listened to what seemed like the wailing of a mortally wounded alley cat from the room next to us.  When the lesson ended I saw it was a classmate of mine toting here new clarinet.

Mr. Mirentz, the Center’s one size fits all music teacher. came in our booth with the gleaming trumpet from the window.  He showed me how to hold it – it was pretty heavy I discovered.  He explained that trumpet players needed “lip” to play this wonderful instrument.  I had a lip and checked that off my list.  But then he added, this “lip” was called the embouchure - some have a good one – some don’t.  Some can make beautiful music and others never do.  He urged me to try to play a note.  I blew as hard as I could – but just a lot of air came out.   “No Cal it’s not about blowing,” he said. “It sort of like humming – you’ve got to make your upper lip buzz into the mouth piece.”  I tried again.  A rasping blatt erupted from the thing. 

“AGAIN!” he ordered. 

I tried again and a ragged, ear piercing sound came out. “He’s a natural!” he exclaimed.  And the die was cast.  My mother beamed with pride with visions of a classical virtuoso dancing in her head. 

Mom signed a rental form which indicated that $5 dollars a week would go to the price of owning this proud and ancient instrument.  She bought a music stand, my beginner's lesson manual and booked me for my first lesson the following Saturday. 

And for the next 7 days I practiced the one note I could muster - as every dog in the neighborhood bayed a duet with me.

A PHRASE IN TIME

(Editors note:  Mr. Bob Stutz a Masonic Brother, historian and good friend sent me this - and I like to share it with you.  These phrases stoke many a Millville Memory for me - sometimes just hearing one makes the gray cells dance - what do they spark for you?)

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We did our best to straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers’ lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Holy Moley! We were “in like Flynn” and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy could not accuse us of being a knucklehead or a nincompoop. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”  We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago:  The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. The very idea! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain or my finger. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks!  You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And Awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.

 It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have our cake and eat it, too!

MANO A MANO

I was a big kid.  Many time mistaken for being “fat” -  I wasn’t really fat. But I did weight 190 in fourth grade.  “Big boned” my grandmother would say – she was always supportive and for her I could never be anything but handsome and a reminder of her father – who was also a big boned German. 

I had to buy clothes from the “Cubby” section in Frank’s Men & Boys store.  Being in that section made my face flush.   Frankly, being big was a burden that was far more than just being taller than everyone in my Bacon School class.

My size led to many bigger boys wanting to fight me. 

I was and continue to be - NOT  a “fighter” – I talk a good game, but have had two actual fist fights in my life.  The first was with Jay P. a second cousin, who called me "the wart hog" and was in sixth grade.  He had been after me on the playground every recess that fall of my 4^th grade year.   I will always remember hiding from him behind the girls jump rope cluster or over with the little kids by the monkey bars.  The worst part I was missing all the playground fun lurking around the whole period.  

This cat and mouse game went on until pimply Jay confronted me one morning right before we had to return to class. He grabbed me and said, “Hey fatso, want a smack in the mouth?”  His gang of greasy friends guffawed heartily. I just couldn’t take it anymore, even as the alarms went off in my head - “your mother will kill you if you get suspended for fighting.”  This the usual penalty for playground pugilism.

Just like one reads about at that boiling point of unbridled anger - I actually did see red that blotted out everything.

Then Jay tried his famous bear hug on me – I made a quick move to the side as he grabbed a bunch of air.  A move I saw watching wrestling on TV with my grandmother.  This was his undoing.  With a strong doze of adrenaline coursing through my veins and to my surprise - I picked Jay up (remember I out weighted this weasel by 40 pounds) and I easily tossed him against the school building wall. He bounced off it like a tennis ball and collapsed in a pile.  I prayed that I had not actually killed him.  He slowly go up - stunned.  His henchmen friends were stunned. 

I was really stunned!

Then he started to cry and gibberish came out of his mouth.  Was he speaking in tongues?  No!

I couldn’t believe it.  He was blubbering that he was sooo sorrrryyyy!  Sorry?  Sorry that I hurled him at least five feet in the air.  I started to cry then and heard myself saying, “I’m sorry tooooo!”  And our teacher blew her whistle and we filed back in for some more dreaded arithmetic. 

Jay never bothered me again.  

Neither did any other "big" kid on the playground.  His friends never said a word to me the rest of the year.  They just  gave me a lot of room.  And I learned a life lesson that day – sometimes one has to just stand and fight.  Running away doesn’t solve - it usually just prolongs.  

And I didn’t have to prove my manhood again for years.

PINBALL WIZARDS

George and Mary’s Luncheonette - what a great place, a great memory.

I still smell the smoky emporium soaked in the residue of ten thousand fried burgers.  G&M’s was the hangout of the Bacon School scholars.  Lunch time filled the soda fountain and grill with 7^th and 8^th graders, the only students not required to eat in the cafeteria.  The menu, true teen gourmet - grease burger, cheese grease burger and the infamous G&M American sub, a roll loaded with oil, vinegar, oregano and an array of cholesterol laden lunch meats and more oil.  

In the back room of G&M’s was a row of pinball machines.  Dark and foreboding, only the true devotee would venture to this lair.  The walls were black from grill smoke and the odor of sneaked Lucky’s hung in the exposed eves.  The flashing lights of the immense machines gave it an eerie throbbing glow.  This was as close to a den of iniquity as a junior high kid could get.  . 

And Brad H. was a pinball wizard who ruled in this twilight of flashing lights and the ping and clunk of the dancing stainless steel balls. (His grandmother was the "M" in the G &M, so he had played countless games without spending a hard earned nickel.)  

I, on the other hand, had invested hundreds of buffalo heads in these pirates without once adding my initials to the winners circle on the illuminated marquee of the Batman and Robin Double Trouble machine.  I am convinced that the machines knew an amateur from a pro.  Bing, bang, bong, and the lights would blink and the flippers would flip.  It was hypnotic to say the least.  Our burger and coke waited on the bar as we frittered away our lunchtime. Bing, bam, the balls flew and the scores mounted.   But never was I (or anyone else) ever able to match the 999,999,999 points of the great Wizard - Brad. 

But one night I was hitting on all cylinders.  It was a Friday and the South Millville boys were at G&M’s and not at the movies like most of our Jr. High classmates.  Pin ball had won over a Jerry Lewis comedy.

The machine was hot.  I had 56 million gazillion and now only needed one good ball, just one last good ball to overtake Brad if only for a brief moment of kid fame.  I pulled back the “striker” to its fullest.  My left index finger  poised on the flipper button.  I started to sweat.  This was the moment of truth.  A moment where I had an opportunity to become legend or be hurled back once again into pinball ignominy.

I loosed the striker.  Bing, Zing =  another 50,000 points on the big wheel and the ball spun around and was thrown toward my left flipper.  I waited for the precise moment and flipped and also struck the side of the machine, with just the right amount of force – so that my ball moved to the left, but not hard enough to “tilt” the machine.  This would mean immediate "game over" by the ever vigilant cheater watchdog built into every machine.  (Brad was a master of this slap technique and had never tilted a machine in over 10,000 games.)

My ball curved and hit the big red target.  Another 75,000 points.  I only need 100,000 more to post a big win.  I would become a G&M's  pinball wizard.  Maybe even get a free shake from my friends who were gathered around in silent respect for my attempt.   Iszard the Wizard.

The ball traveled down the inclined deck.  I rapped it with my right flipper and it flew around the machine like it had eyes - zing, zing, bong.  999, 999, 9998 points chalked up, I needed only to sink my ball in one of the bonus holes or hit the big zinger in the middle and I would make pinball history.

The ball was spit back at me at warp speed by the mechanical plunger at the top of the board.  My adrenaline spurted and I tensed.  My hair stood up on the back of my neck. This was it. But I knew I could do it.  Pinball fame was one flip away.  The silver orb shot toward my left flipper, my weak side.  I waited until the precise moment and with a dynamic twitch of my index finger pressed the flipper button.  It didn’t flip.  The flipper didn’t flip.  For god’s sake a malfunction in the machine.  The ball fell into the gutter and the game was over.

I had racked up 999,999,998. Two lousy points short of besting the Brad the best for at least until he played again.

 The machine stopped whirring and went into its “ballyhoo mode” playing the Batman and Robin theme from the TV in that tinny, mechanical, pinball machine music.  I stood there stunned for a moment and then walked away.  So near and yet so far away was that win.

I never played pinball again after that.  And Brad H. would never be beaten.  His initials remained on top of that list until George and Mary retired, the joint closed and their machines where trucked off to be sold at auction. 

But the record stands forever - and the pinball records of my day will never be challenged by the kids of today – those great gaudy blinking machines all went the way of the dinosaurs – killed off  by Xbox and iPad.

HARROWING HORMONES

My 7^th grade year was one of awkwardness, pimples and really growing fast.  I towered over the other boys in my grade and was very self-conscious of my size not realizing what a gift my very healthy body was until much later in my life.

For most of us, 7^th grade and growing up, was a series of dramas interspersed with embarrassing moments.

I will never forget our first “gym” class and a certain brainy friend, a surgeon to be. trying to put his athletic support on backwards and over his underwear to boot.  Matter of fact, most of us wore our required protective apparatus over our underwear – as Mr. Scargle, the gym teacher, was wont to come into the locker behind the Bacon stage to check as we undressed.  Taking a shower after class was totally out of the question.  We jokingly wondered if he checked the girls bras.  Sex was indeed on our minds.  

A week before school started the jock quest  began for me as I made the obligatory visit to Garton’s Sport Center with my mom (the downside of a single parent family) to get my unmentionable. We walked to the back of the store where these items where hidden out of sight - my how things have changed.  Mr. G bellowed, “How can I help you Cal?  I whispered.  “I need one of those (my voice faded)  Can’t hear you son?  My mother blurted – He needs one of those jock strap thingies for school.”  What size, he asked me?  I replied, a…a large?  My mother laugh, “Ha Ha,  No Bob, he may be tall, but he is not large.” I was absolutely mortified and tried to disappear.

Something was going on for sure inside me and this was just the beginning. 

I now know that my male hormones were beginning to escape from the deep recesses of my Id.  But then had no idea what was going on - sex education in my day was peeking at a French magazine that a friend dad brought home from the war.. And it all came to a head (excuse the expression) in my English class about a month into the term.

A very developed girl name Gail sat near me during English class where we were forced fed the first 6 million stanzas of the Evangeline.  “This is the forest primeval, the land of the oak and the hemlock.”  Over the decades, it still comes back to me from the crevices of my gray cells.  What agony to memorize and then stand to recite.  Oh, why did we do this?  Weren’t books invented so we would not have to rely on oral history?

Back to Gail.  

On a particularly boring afternoon of great literature I could not keep my eyes off the back of her fuzzy sweater.   Her pink angora perfectly outlined her bra strap and those tiny mysterious hooks,and eyes that keep her mighty mysteries at attention.  I pondered - I bet buying a supporter for guys is the same as that first bra for girls. Indeed heavy thinking.  (I leaned just how hard it was on a shopping trip with my daughter decades later)

I could not stop looking at that outline.  I had my first fantasy. I think?  I saw myself grabbing and pulling that strap back like a sling shot and letting it go -  SWACK it would go like a cherry bomb in a silo. I could feel my face starting to get hot.  

Miss Lord’s, well in her 60 (and probably never to have a bra snapped on her for any reason) –  stopped reading and looked over her glasses, and caught me staring at Gail.  I knew that Miss Lord knew exactly what was on my mind. Nevertheless, she only got a chance to utter the words, “Mister Iszard” when the bell rang and I bolted for the door.

And unknowingly she had saved me from doing something that would have probably gotten me expelled in my day and jailed today.  From that day I tried to control my imagination - but girls did replace baseball as my most prevalent daydream.  And still do!

And just think – just a few weeks before this  I didn’t even like 'em!

LOVE'S SEASON

Bacon Elementary days keep creeping into my thoughts...

Once I got over the first day I liked school and liked all my teachers but in Fifth grade I really loved my teacher.  And that year everything changed at the Bacon School; a very different kind of year in many ways.  Millville was growing  and there weren’t enough teachers to cover all the classes. Two grades were combined into one classroom at the Bacon School,  I attended 5^th and 6^th grades that fall in one very full classroom. 

I loved it.  

Our teacher was Miss Moore.  I never knew her first name - and years later I would learn that that year was her first year of teaching and last in Millville - and looking back I think she did a great job juggling the lessons in this throwback to a  one room school house environment.

I loved it because it was a chance to listen to the 6^th grade lessons when I was supposed to be doing my 5th grade deskwork.  I liked their subjects much more than the “kid-stuff” that I was supposed to be concentrating on in my own grade.

When all was going so well that year the worst thing that can happen to a kid, happened. 

Right after Thanksgiving my mom told some shocking and chilling news.  We were moving to another part of town the first day of Christmas Vacation and I was going to go to the Wood School. Oh no, a fate worse than death.  I was going to leave good ole Bacon School and my South Millville pals at Christmas no less...

I would miss our marble championship matches on the playground, our kickball games after school.  Most of all my comfortable and known place in the pecking order of elementary school life.  I was being forced (against my will) to go into that dark abyss called a new school, a new class, and make new friends.  But there was no escape.

My mind raced for days.  How about I forget my timetables?  Will I have to read more books to catch up?  Will I be embarrassed about my worst subject, arithmetic?  Will they make me talk in front of the class everyday?  Yikes!

One thing I knew - I will never have any friends for the rest of my life.

And so, on the last day before Christmas vacation I waited until everyone had gone and slowly walked up to Miss Moore's big desk.  Even now I remember how young and innocent and blond she was.  She always smelled so clean, not like the old (maid?) teachers I had endured so far - who smelled mostly of chalk dust and perfume.

I told Miss M. that I would be moving and she looked up from marking our final spelling papers of 1954, and she said, “Well it has been a pleasure having you as my student and I will miss you in the New Year.”  And that was it! That was all she would say at this worst terrible moment of life.

I was crushed.  

I stood there for a long moment - I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that I would always love her - but I just said, "Merry Christmas Miss Moore" and staggered away.  Then she called to me, I quickly turned in great anticipation.  “Cal, would you mind closing the door on your way out?”  

"Good bye" I said as I closed it slowly, 

I took one last look at my true love through that tiny window in the middle of the heavy oak door.  And saw my wonderful teacher with her eyes filled with tears as she dropped her head down on her desk and started to cry. And so did I - all the way home.

I think she loved me too!

THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

R.M. Bacon School is still on my mind.  Facebook was filled this week with new photos of the 86th Anniversary celebration and a bunch of "white hairs" dancing - but the old photos, they got me thinking about those days again...

After the trauma of my reluctant first day, going and staying in kindergarten came easy.  

I soon found it was not that bad as we spent a lot of time putting together wooden puzzles, Miss Garton, (all teacher were called "miss" whether they were or not) would choose a person from each of our tables of 4 to go pick a puzzle from the rack.  I am not sure what pedagogical concept this enforced but we did and re-did these puzzles the whole year.   I always picked Little Boy Blue - it was by far the easiest and got this task over quickly.

We also did a lot of snacks.  Taking naps on rag rugs.  Drawing pictures with ancient stubs of crayons from a waxy box that was missing all of the good colors. I thought “this isn’t school, it play time with worn out toys.”   I guess I was expecting more as my mom and I played school many nights and her lessons seemed more challenging.  I wondered why we had to wait a whole year to get to the reading and the writing?

Breaking up the routine every other week was the visiting art teacher and her cart of wonders. 

She would wheel in and we would make paper chains for Christmas and papermache eggs for Easter.  Most all of art learning seemed to center around holidays for some reason.  But one day we were instructed to do a non-holiday task, to paint a picture of our house with those smelly mason jars of poster paints. 

Editors note:  After much study of this over many years watching my own kids, I conclude that every kid artist does the following - they work the paper vertically, a blue line across the top = the sky.  A green line across the bottom = the ground.  A box with a triangle on top is their house, always with smoke curling from a chimney.  Next to the house is a stick figure waving one hand = me.  Sometimes next to the stick kid is a smaller stick dog or cat.

So I got busy.  

I brushed a mixture of blue and white to tone down the brilliant blue of the alla prima approach to this work.  I turned the paper horizontally and floated my new sky tone down to form an horizon line that was a tad above the center.  I then started to dry brush out combinations of green and brown for the ground of the landscape when the "art" teacher came by.  "Calvin ! WHAT in the world are you doing???” she barked.  The whole class became silent.  She continued, "The sky isn’t supposed to come all the way down the paper...it should be a line across the top.  Too much paint here.  And why are you painting it long ways?"  To this day I remember my reply - it has stayed with me because it forged the foundation of the rest my life in the arts.

I replied, "Well I think that the land is big and it fits better long ways on the paper...and I think the sky always meets the ground?   She turned and said to Mrs. Garton, “this is the one who wouldn't come in the first day, right?  I knew he was going to be trouble.”  

And I was.

All my life of learning, painting and creating I questioned why and often had a troublesome inquiring mind as they say.  And years later I learned as a Fine Ars Education teacher that my take on the horizon and perspective as a kindergarten-er was not normal for that age.  Kids in kindergarten are supposed to see things flat.  Little did I know then  I was in a small minority whose inner eye saw the world differently.  Like the great masters - I was not understood, not appreciated in my time.

For the rest of that year, hard as it was,  I painted like everybody else in my class.  For as Picasso was fond to quote Hippocrates:  "Life is short, and art long, opportunity fleeting, experience perilous, and decision difficult."    

THE ACCIDENT

At least once a month Myrtle and Lew Clark would pick me up at Glassboro State on their way to Philly to bring son Lewis “Bub” Jr. home for the weekend.  On our last ride for the semester as we drove on the freeway leading to the Walt Whitman the three of us marveled at a glowing cloud formation right in front of us.  It was a yellow and red cross illuminated by the setting sun in the purple cloud hovering over the city – little did we know this was an omen of what was to come that weekend.

Bub and I were both bushed from catching up for our finals of our Junior years in college.  But being young and foolish – fatigue was not an option on a weekend.  We dropped off the folks and headed for our rendezvous with fate.  We drove to Somers’ Point to make the rounds of the watering holes in search of some “action” – yeah right - both of us were always the optimists and rarely successful in our quests.

Our first stop was Tony Mart’s for some beer and the throbbing music – the bass made our eardrums flex.  Today I would not venture into a smoke laden den of iniquity like this – but in my early twenties and legally able to drink for most of that year this was called FUN?

We stood in the weaving crowd and scanned the scene.  

Most of the girls were wearing madras Bermuda shorts and penny loafers.  The guys in tee’s or sweatshirts that ballyhooed their colleges (and some even attended them).  The joint wasn't jumping at 10:40 PM – but hell the night was young.  Bub declared, “this place is dead!”  And we sauntered across the street to the much larger drink-a-porium – Bayshores.  

It looked and sounded just the same as Tony’s.  But Bub, always the optimist declared, “now yer talking!”  I was a bit chagrined at this  – but it was far to loud to argue.  Here we saw a couple kids we knew.  And we toasted summer vacation with a couple of bottles of  the local vintage, Schmidts Beer – “Schmidts of Philadelphia…Schmidts will ring a bell fa ya…”  Little did we know our bells would soon be rung.  We hung around, shuffled with the music and imagined getting dates to dance with – and soon decided that our “fun” was over for the night.

Instead of driving the shortest way back to Millville.  Bub decided we “needed check out Ocean City.”  So we motored across the bay and cruised by the Chatterbox – a burger joint for the local college set in this very dry town.  The place was empty so we decided to return home and get some rest so we could do this fairly mindless quest all over again tomorrow.

As Bub drove his father’s new giant 1964 Buck Roadmaster up the dark Central Avenue in the mostly vacant town (the summer season would not start for almost a month) I started to doze off. The buick did have such comfortable leather seats as big as a LazyBoy. 

I woke with a start.  Flashing lights, sirens.  Where? …What was happening? 

I was strapped down and my head was in a foam box thing and a guy in white was waving a flashlight in my eyes.  Gads I'm in an ambulance!  He ordered me to lie still and assured, “that I would be alright.”  All right? From what?  Was this real?

Unfortunately - It was real. 

I learned a couple of days later what had taken place.  After I fell asleep.  Bub decided to join me. 

We drifted across the avenue and hit a parked car head at approximately 40 miles an hour.  I was ejected from the car.  The car with Bub continue on and crashed into a porch.  It burst into flames.  I apparently in a state of shock had revived and was able to pull my unconscious friend from his car leaving his shoes by the door.  I had managed to drag him away from the flames.  I was found by the police walking down the middle of the avenue crying for help.

I remember nothing of this!  Apparently about 10 minutes had been erased from my memory banks = perhaps this is nature’s way of protecting us from life’s traumas – and that was a good thing.

Post script:  We both spent 3 days in the hospital.  I had a fairly serious concussion and Bub had 14 stitches in his tongue which he almost bit off on the impact.  We had totally destroyed two cars and burned down a porch.  But the most important – we had both survived. 

I regret that my mother had to get a call from the police that midnight – the call every parents prays not to get.  This incident affected her for years to come – she always worried about me anyway and after this she would never fail to remind me of the many dangers I could encounter driving.

The Accident – as it would be called for years to come changed my summer.  I missed a couple of finals at school and had to take some makeup tests in the fall to clear “Incomplete's”.   I was not allowed to work at the glass plant – too soon in my recovery to stand the heat and noise Dr. Rosen decided.  

But we both recovered – and I got a counselor job at Camp Hollybrook.  I would be the “Chief” of the Apaches – the 8 and 9 year old day campers.  (Which will be covered in an upcoming post).

Such is life.  The up side of this disaster – I think we both learned that in an instant all our hopes, dreams and plans for the future can vanish. And I especially learned to be more careful who I trusted to drive me around. 

But most important I realized for the first time that I was not immortal – and this changed everything.    

TeamWork

(Editors Note:  This photo was posted on Facebook today - it appeared over 50 years ago in the Millville Daily Republican the week of football camp for the Millville High School Thunderbolts. These men gave up their time as a labor of love for the game and worked hard - before and after their sons graduate to feed 81 hungry boys all vying for a spot on the Bolt's Varsity - all toiling in the heat of late summer the week before Labor Day - this easily sparked a Millville Memory that I hadn't thought of for a long time.)

Labor Day was a week away and the sun was boiling that day.  

However the excitement of another football season was in the air as we boarded a school bus bound for the Thunderbolt’s football camp.  We met at the high school and got our equipment – the scrubs got hand me down pads and ragtag practice uniforms with rips and tears, while we the mighty seniors were issued brand new helmets and jerseys.

 Here we were again, my 3rd and last visit to a week of really hard practice at the YMCA’s Camp Hollybrook.

The new guys got to bunk in the open air screened cabins and had army cots to try to sleep on.  The varsity was in the “lodge” and had bunk beds.  Lewis Clark, Bub Clark’s dad of our starting quarterback that year was one of the chief cooks and bottle washer he said.  And this was his the culmination of his service to the school – Bub was going to graduate in June.  (And never to throw a football again)

I looked forward to (believe it or not) the baloney sandwiches on white fresh Sunbeam bread with tons of yellow mustard and the “secret” formula bug juice which did the job many years before the trendy formulas came out for hydrating athletes. 

We went to bed exhausted that first day of practice at dusk and a bit afraid of what our coaches had planned for us tomorrow.  We woke to the blaring sound of a scratched 45 rpm record - RAIN RAIN RAIN – by Frankie Lane and the Four Lads.  A sound I grew to hate and it’s still embedded in my memory bank.  It conjures up the scent of sweat, purple bruises and running until you want to drop – but you don’t.  Playing the song about rain was our lament.  Not that it would delay any of the two per day practices – never.  It just cooled them below 100 on the shade-less field of cactus mixed with and a blade of stubborn grass here and there.

“Rile” as we called Coach Bob Riley lead our trek in our shorts out of the camp and up the country road to the big tree – about a mile out and on the way back he blew his ever present whistle and we sprinted to the lodge and a wonderful breakfast - each day the run got longer. 

Breakfast was followed by the first practice followed by most of us tossing up our wonderful breakfast among the weeds on the field.  

We hit and ran and then ran some more from September 1 to Labor day, whenever it fell on the calendar,  Each practice ending with the agony of endless wind sprints.  The days seemed to never end.  Each morning it was tougher to get up and get going - everything seem to hurt. The line got bigger as the team trainer administered yards of mole skin on the battered and blistered.  

But like everything in life - it ended.  And for most of us who stuck it out - it would be remember as a strange kind of fun.  Each year when we broke camp – head coach John Barbose took us home via a side trip to his beloved Laurel Lake for a visit to the annual Labor Day Regatta, speed boat races.  We had to promise not to tell anyone – but the whole town always knew about this team tradition.  The breeze off the lake was always like heaven and we got a brief look at what regular people did on this holiday.

 Oh how I yearn to spend one my week again - running and playing all day – (if you never did this you will really never understand what it meant to each of us.  We were a TEAM after that week.) 

For most us we learned more than our book of plays – we learned that sacrifice, some sweat and hard work is really what life was about and to succeed one must hear the RAIN - get up and do everything the best one can.

FIRST LOVE LOST

We feel many kinds of love in our lifetime. As we grow they grow with us or dim and fade.  I loved my new bike.  My mom.  The first snow of the year…But there is one love that most of us can never really get over – that’s our first romantic love. 

It started when our eyes met so briefly in the school cafeteria line a couple of months into the school year.  And wow!  There are thousands of words and songs about it – poets praise it in iambic pentameter.  But when it happens for the first time – there are no words that do it justice.  But we just know it.  

Indeed "Zing went the strings of my heart"....!  We got our food and she sat with her friends; me with mine.  One of her friends said something.  They laughed.  I tried not to look.  But I failed.  For the whole lunch period I took a quick glance at her and at my green plastic plate of school food.  I deposited most of my gray meatloaf in the can by the door. Somehow my - always great appetite - vanished. I felted afflicted with a malady.  And by the next day I noticed that the sky while waiting for the school bus  – nothing but blue skies did I see.  I kept hearing song lyrics in my head that seemed to be about me. In a daze I walked the hall of lockers hoping to see her.  And then there she was opening locker #214 – I still remember its number and what she was wearing.  A gray skirt, a blue oxford blouse and argyle knee socks.  I felt a bit dizzy - is this true love like the flu?  After two days of exchanging smiles. I had the courage to say “hi”.  And now knew her name - Kathy.  The day after I walked with her to her math class.  I was late to my Latin II torture.  I get a warning that lateness is not tolerated in Latin.  And unlike the former fearsome me I really didn't care.  

And so it progressed according to the ritual of a high school romance. Walking led to carrying books to holding hands to yearning to be together more each day.  We went on our first date.  We met at the movies on a Friday night, holding hands for GreyFriars Bobby – a sentimental perfect date movie - but were we both really watching?  I think we were both making our own movie.  Next Saturday we meet at the Y dance.  We kiss goodnight quickly and she runs to her dad’s car.  And our school days turn into months.  The intervals between seeing each seem so long.  The leaves fell and winter winds blew. But our love kept us warm.  Her dad gives her permission to drive with me on dates.  We explore places and each other.  What to buy her for Christmas?  Picking the right Valentine.  I give her a big chocolate Easter Egg…and then spring and school is almost over.

We say goodbye on the marble steps of our last day - an occasion we both once looked forward to  – but not now.  We would be miles apart and I had a summer job, saving for college - we could only connect during the week by phone.  The words flowed – mostly silly words.  We laughed and constantly tested each other.  Did she meet someone new at the shore?  Do you love me?  Do you still love me? Would you like to date other people?  Do you…would you…?  All games in the dance of first love.  We went to the beach on my days off and hugged under the blanket.  We crowded as much as we could into weekends.  And then  summer faded and she went back to high school and I left for college.  And by our homecoming at Thanksgiving.  I didn’t sit with her at the big game.  I told her I wanted to sit with my friends who I hadn’t seen for months.  She got mad. We argued and then it was over.

For some of us first love just ends as fast as it starts.  First loves are fragile.  An unkind word can lead to unraveling.  But for some of my former classmates their puppy love would last - it was real and went beyond school to marriage to children to homes and lives well lived!  I look back and still wonder, after all these years, why was I different?  I left home and would never came back.  I guess it was my yearning to get beyond the borders of our small town and taste a bigger world.  I look back now and wonder was it all really worth it?  I gained much in my life, some fame, family and some great times – but I paid for what I gained with the loss of my innocent dreams of romance.  Somewhere along the way the blues skies grayed and my love songs faded.  

I paid a price by saying goodbye to my first love - she made my heart sing a song it would never sing again.

DAY ON THE PIER

It’s Memorial Day and the start of another summer…always makes me think of my summers growing up and then I am back to 1955 and we pile into my grandfather’s giant Buick for our annual pilgrimage to Atlantic City’s Steel Pier.  We actually dressed up for this trip – an idea so foreign for today’s holiday travels. 

Also, my grandmother made lunches for our trip. Get out.

The trip was a trek in those days – years later I would commute twice as far to work every day.  First stop after parking for a dollar was the rooftop picnic area – the Pier allowed you to bring in your own food.  Ham salad on white bread.  We bought Cokes from a refreshment stand nearby.

 

And then our adventure began with two fun-houses.  The first had two floors of scariness with one below the wooden deck.  The other was not scary - for the "little ones" which I definitely didn't feel a part of at 10. After a few screams we visited a "grave" exhibit - under a massive headstone that read R.I.P was a horizontal glass box a bit bigger than a phone booth where one could view a “live” person in his underwear.  Supposedly there all summer, being fed through a small window.  It looked hot in there and I was mortified at the idea.  My grandmother reported that, "some people would do anything for a buck, ask Crazy Had Elliot who sat on a flag pole atop the Levoy theater for two months!" We moved on as watching this guy who was oblivious to those peering at him read the newspaper wasn't very exciting.

For one price of admission there were two movie theaters.  A vaudeville show with show biz stars - on today's bill - a new singer named Como.   There was also the Tony Grant Stars of Tomorrow show with my cousin Eleanor Haley with a girl named Merle and the two Kirby brothers all from Millville dancing as the "Hicks from the Sticks" 8 shows a day.  (And all in the future proved Mr. Grant to be wrong in his prediction of stardom in their case).  We sat through this show out of family duty - but I really couldn't wait to get to the end of the pier. 

What seemed far out to sea was the main attraction - the "Water Circus" with a seal that played bicyle horns, a team of diving clowns, a daring high diver and the great Diving Horse as the finale.  (The dive actually looked more like the horse reluctantly fell into the large tank - the bally-hoo promised much more than this act actually delivered. But this was the highlight of my day as the clowns belly-flopped into the sea far below and the high diver timed his jack-knife to at the high point of a swell. All this accompanied by the Steel Pie 4 piece band.

We slowly made our way back toward the shore.  Past the "Diving Bell" a ride made world famous by  a newsreel of a couple getting married "on the bottom of the sea",  I had ventured aboard this one floor elevator ride and frankly, once was enough. The "Captain" touted the thrill of seeing the underwater sea-life from the portholes that ringed the chamber - in reality I could only see a cloud of sandy green.  Once again the reality paled in comparison to the hype - I would learn in later life this was usually the case in show biz and many other aspects of "real" life.

We had cotton candy, popcorn and created a "sand sculpture" in a bottle for a buck.  My mother kept it on her chest of drawers for years.  We visited the GM exhibit on the way out.  Sitting in the new Cadillac was the best of the dozen cars on display.  The scent of a room full of new cars was intoxicating to a boy my age. 

And then home to sleep after a day of walking the pier.  A full day for the cost of a cup of coffee today.

The 50's were the salad days for Atlantic City and the Steel Pier – it indeed was the Queen of the Jersey shore - wearing a crown that has tarnished so much with age.  Those days will never return, no matter how many casinos survive there.  And the days of simple fun have disappeared too - along with the Steel Pier and my summer Sunday adventures.

A SUNDAY RIDE

My stepdad owned only one new car in his life of driving.  And that was before he married my mom.  Once he took on an “instant” family he inherited other priorities.  And it seems now looking back for mother a “new” car wasn’t one of them.

And he certainly could pick the most embarrassing array (for a teenager that is) of autos ever procured.

In my day and I suppose today, the car illustrated just what level one resided in the stations of society.  All drivers were labeled by their car.  There was a distinct division – much like the caste system of ancient India – between a “Buick Driver” and a “Chevy Man”.   And there was even a great distinction between a new and used car owner - the haves and have not players in a big part of the American Dream.

We were relegated to the “untouchables” according to some of the clunkers my dad chose as our family mode of conveyance.

And to make matters worse my dad refused to buy a car which contained a radio in the dash – he insisted that it reduced our enjoyment and conversation on our family Sunday drives. (A torture I face after Sunday school – mainly in fear that someone I knew would see me in our 5 year old Chevy Custom)  And when I started to date - this lack was very hard to explain to a gal who wanted to listen to some rock and roll music as we motored along.

A Chevy Custom no less was our current auto.

  

This was a model that was so diminished from the Chevy Belaire that it sometimes was mistaken for a British Checker Cab.  Ours was a fashionable two toned “insipid cream” with a robin egg blue top – a color combo I never saw once in the 2 years we drove around in it. It had to have been the choice of the colorblind first owner.  (One of my dad's prerequisites for buying a used car was that it could only have been once removed from its original owner.)

The “custom” model’s only standard features seemed to be a motor and 4 wheels.  The car was devoid of any excess of style.  The only chrome found on it was the bumpers and the front grill.  AC? In my day air conditioning involved rolling down the windows.  (Editor’s note for those under 50 = we had to turn a handle gizmo about 39 times to lower the windows on most cars – except the Caddie)  The seats looked like they had seat covers – but the mesh I found was the standard fabric for this model.  The unkindest cut of all - we rode on black walled tires in the day of the obsequious sparkling whitewalls. 

Ok, now I know what you are thinking – I should feel lucky we even had a car.  But this was the late 50’s and everybody had a car, a TV and button down shirt collars. 

This car strained to do 40 miles an hour as its minimal horsepower gave us all it had.  We never attempted to pass a car – it was not an option.  With the smallest Chevy motor available this beaut still only got 12 miles to the gallon. Thankfully gas guzzling wasn’t too hurtful as gas (and there was only one kind at the pump) was 19 cents a gallon.

Another Sunday arrived and after church the following conversation was repeated once again.  Dad said, “Will hon, where to?”  My mother’s standard reply as I guess she too would have rather gone home and ironed stuff – “Oh, I don’t know?”  And we zoomed away at 12 miles an hour building eventually to our Sunday cruising speed.  

“How about Bridgeton Zoo?”  Yikes not again I thought to myself.  We had been there at least 1000 times to see the every growing population of white tailed deer and two very tired raccoon who hated being up in the daytime.  My mother replied “gee let’s get some custard instead …that would be nice…" (Muffled yawn).  And off we went to the “Blinker” custard stand.

The Blinker was new and it offered two flavors of a new confection just introduced to our area – soft ice cream, called custard for some strange reason.  To me custard was not frozen and it came in a bowl, was a lot like bread pudding.   I ordered vanilla as always.  (An example of my standard of sophistication in those days)

And then the drive torture was over.  

My dad had gotten his need to ride around aimlessly out of his system for this week.  Sunday dinner lay ahead for us and another family tradition – the aroma of my grandmother-baked chicken filled the house and I settled down in the back yard with my transistor radio and listened to the Phils game until our dinner was ready (the only dinner for the week as on weekdays we had supper exactly at 5 PM)