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) 

A WALK ON HIGH STREET

I grew up in a factory town family.  My grandmother took care of me during the workweek as my mom went to her job in the local glass factory.  She did something in the manufacturing of medical pipettes – a mystery to me until I learned in science that they were glass tubes used for measuring stuff.  But just what she did do to/with them was never clear?   She did this for over ten years – but like many who toiled in the recesses of our factories, she rarely chatted about it.  It was just her week of “work”.  

But the weekends were much different.  Her work was forgotten when we made our Saturday walk on High Street.

We would go “up town” usually by bus, as my mother never learned to drive.  And we would do high street, our pre-mall avenue of friendly shops.  We would walk the whole 8 blocks on both sides of the street.  Some buying, some bill paying and lots of window shopping.

We would start with Milville’s Bank by the Clock as the ads trumpeted.  The big, staid National bank on the corner of High & Main.  It’s marble floors gleamed as we entered it church-like, silent interior.  The centerpiece of the bank was the vault with its monumental mechanical door.  The large area had a very high ceiling.  Near the rear wall was an imposing granite counter of glass windows framing a dozen clerks.  Some wearing green eye-shades – all dressed in fine business attire.  They spoke in hushed and reverent tones - with a natural respect for their regal repository of the city’s wealth.  And each clerk knew my mom by first name and she by theirs. 

This kind of personal business - could be today in the world of drive-thru banking and talking to a machine that eats hard earned deposits.

My mother was there to make a deposit to her $2 dollar a week, 40 week Christmas Savings Account.  An “instrument” of motivated savings that earned a small amount of interest but was actually a big device to insure that the saver would immediately spend the saved funds in the adjoining shops the minute the was available right before another bountiful holiday.

Next off to Freeman’s Shoes – to put another buck in her “Shoe Club” - this tool too helped her in “saving and affording” our most expensive personal item - our fashionable footwear.  I particularly liked this store.  Mr. Freeman would check my feet in the “X-Ray” machine. J stick a foot in this big box  and you could peer at the bones right through your shoe – a handy sales tool that insured a customer the purchase would be a “perfect” fit; with a mighty dose of radiation that would surely be banned today.  We know a lot more about the effects of wayward rays on our kids fragile cells.

This store had a lot of life size pictures of Buster Brown; “who lived in a shoe with his dog Tige – who lived there too!”  Many Saturdays Mr. Freeman would give me a Buster Brown coloring book or sometimes a new quarter – even if I didn't buy a pair of shoes – but I knew, he knew we would be buying as soon as my mom’s club was done and it was in the 16th week of its 26 week run.

And so it continued.

Next stop a look at Jules Men and Boy’s boys clothes – just a look as I had my school clothes for the year.  This year a new pant was introduced – Chinos?  The TV ads spieled out that they were a “cool and wearable” fabric – to me they just looked like shinny work pants.

The  Princess Shop was next on our itinerary  - This was not my favorite store - but mom always checked it out.  This was a dress-up dress store – no cotton “house-dresses” here.   My mother loved fine clothes and when she was young she had many beautiful “going out” frocks.  In later life, for some strange reason, she stopped buying clothes and wore the same outfits for her last twenty years of her life - never venturing into a dress shop and only buying her necessities from the Sears catalog.

Now a must on every walk - Bob Garton’s Sport Center – it was really a toy store with some fishing rods, duck decoys and shotgun shells.  I spent at least half hour imagining play with almost everything in the place.  I especially liked the plastic model building kits – and one in particular - the Battleship New Jersey.  It had to be at least a foot long. (I got it for my birthday later that year and it took a month to apply about 1000 decals and glue it together.).  Mom never rushed me here as she knew I was constructing my never ending Christmas list  - it would come in handy (for both of us) later in the year.

Next was the 5 & 10's.

We had two in our town.  The old Newberry’s and the new Woolworth’s – each with similar inventories, only Newberry’s floors loudly creaked as we walked the aisles and it still had a lunch counter.  (Fun Fact: One could actually buy something for 5 or 10 cents in these stores.)  Both were the purveyors of the necessities of life for the working class – from shoe strings to safety pins.  And for me a much more affordable toy department.  Today I would invest in a balsa wood guilder for 25 cents that would last exactly two flights before it disintegrated after a mighty nose dive.

Last stop – the very new Atlantic & Pacific Supermarket which was the dangerous competitor that soon would kill our corner markets.  The selection of brands wasn't overwhelming and nothing like the mega stores of today.  But it did have a fairly new section, frozen foods and this week “TV Dinners” were on sale  – but my mom wasn't interested  – “not enough to eat”, she declared.  We filled our basket, checked out and called a Yellow taxi cab with a nickel on the black payphone - taking a bus with several bags of groceries was not an option. 

And thus ended that week's Saturday walk on High Street, to be repeated weekly, for at least 8 more years  – and then they suddenly stopped.

The walk's demise?  It had to do with me attaining a girlfriend and access to my grandfather’s old car.  And that indeed is another story to come.

THE UNIFORM

When I was young time could never go fast enough.  Today I wish it would creep.

As a kid I was always waiting for something in the future – for the day I could ride a two wheeler to getting my driver’s license.  Holidays were yearned for and summer vacation was 180 days away the start of every school year.  And then I thought about my Cub Scout uniform.

This obsession started when I would see Scout marching in the parades that literally came and went on High Street.  Those blue and yellow trimmed outfits and that funny little hat.  Ah, the call to learn the survival skills essential for roughing in the wild.  For most boys the lore of the uniform – any uniform – is indeed so alluring!  Couple this with a promise of high adventure and I could not wait to turn 8 and get fitted for my official Cub Scout uniform.

However, the uniform came with a high price for my mother.

Somehow she had to become a “Den Mother” for me to have a den in our neighborhood and be a part of the “Pack” that was sponsored by the Presbyterian Church.  So my mother signed up 8 boys and we started our own den with my mother learning the tasks and crafts before our meetings – but that meant that I would finally get my coveted uniform to march proudly in parades and wear around blazing camp fires of in the pines.

 

Corson’s Men’s Shop had just become a certified and “official scout paraphernalia” outlet.  Much better than the Sears Catalogue.  Plus, Mr. Corson was obviously an authority on the needs of scouts as I had visited his store many times and he patiently answered all of my questions on many Saturdays waiting for this day to come.

I tried on the pants first.  They had metal buttons on the pockets that sported a wolf’s head captured in bas relief.  The shirt came next which I pictured emblazoned with an array of my hard earned “merit badges” - also available at Corson’s @ 50 cents each.  Next the beanie with a brim displaying the proud Cub Scout emblem.  I looked in the mirror – and somehow I didn’t exactly look like one of the guys in Boys Life – but life is never like it is pictured in magazines or our heads.

Mr. Corson then put the bright yellow kerchief around my neck  – and told mother that the slide that finished it off was a necessity for the well-dressed Cub.   I am sure my mom was adding up the totals of this shopping spree as we proceeded because her smile had turned to a slight grimace.  This was not the “whole kit and caboodle” Mr. Corson offered but a good start for now.

And then I saw it in the display case alongside a canteen.  The Cub Scout Official Three Blade Pen Knife with belt clip.  My mother immediately knew what I was thinking – she always knew and before I could say, “I really need a genuine …” She blurted, “Absolutely not - you are not old enough to have a knife”!   Mr. Corson’s and my eyes met in the middle of her edict – and we communicated an age old message – Women Never Understanding Us Men! (An adage that would be proven time and again for me later in life)

“Oh mom…every Scout I know has a knife…I will need it to open tins of food on hikes…fend off wild animals… whittle stuff…chop kindling…and…”

I could see that Mr. Corson was impressed with my litany of justifications for this three inch tool of deadly steel.   He knew I had done my homework.  And then he said, “Marge, every kid his age gets one and it’s only $4.98 – but I’ll give it to you for half price because you are getting the whole uniform.  This time my mother and my eyes met.  She paused, and knew then she was outnumbered – “Oh all right – but you can only take it to the meetings, not playing or to school or…”  Her voice faded, as always she was such a push-over when it came to getting me something I really wanted. 

My next target would be in a few weeks - the official Boy Scout mess kit which came in a leather pouch – ideal for camping and hikes it said on the box.  But that would have to wait.  My mother took home about $38 bucks a week and this shopping spree was going to take half of her week’s paycheck.

My mother did a great job and our start-up won awards and many of the Pack events to the chargrin of the veteran youth leaders.   Especially since we were all mostly Methodists, except for Billy W. who was a Catholic. 

I went on to Boy Scouting at a Troop sponsored by the 2^nd Methodist Church.  Never made it past Tenderfoot class – went on one camping trip, cut my hand on a rusty tin can, left early for some stiches at Doc Rosen’s and never returned to the adventures of scouting.  Years later when my own son finally got me to go spend a few nights in a tent in a state forest - I would remember why I still hated camping.  It was cold, wet and uncomfortable.

For me roughing it will always be a hotel without room service. 

FIELDS OF GREEN

Overnight the gray of winter has disappeared and the green around me is almost as vibrant as the greenest green I ever saw.  I drift back in the alcoves of my memory and its early summer 1950.  My mother came home from work and as she came into the kitchen where supper was ready and on the table – dining rooms were only found in hotels and fancy restaurants in my world.  She announced, “Guess what!” What! We all chimed…as we knew whenever she began with that phase something good was in store.  “How would you like to go to see the Philadelphia Phillies baseball game?”  “Wow!" – was my immediate response, followed by a where, when, how and WHEN!  Saturday I was going to see  a “real” game – I knew my heroes from their exploits on the radio – now I was going to SEE them play!  Mom filled us in as we ate one of grandmother’s specialties – meat cakes and potato pancakes – (most of what my grandmother conjured up in the kitchen ended in cakes.  And everything was fried to a golden brown in lard.  (The cooking in the 50’s made many budding cardiologists very rich in the 70’s!) 

My mom bought the tickets to the game from one of the “ladies” she worked with.  The trip was sponsored by the 4th Methodist Church Men’s Sunday School Class – their annual outing and they needed to fill the bus to cover the cost – thus the tickets were being sold to a few chosen folks.  The tickets were 6 bucks each.  Not even enough for a hotdog and peanuts at a game today as one can spend $60 just for a seat on the upper deck – but all things are indeed relative – the tickets including the bus fare was almost a full day’s pay for my mom.  Hard earned cash manually earned in a glass factory. As a single parent I’m sure going to a baseball game with me wasn’t really on the top of her wish list – but she tried her best to be dad and mom for me; sometimes she tried too hard.

 I couldn't wait until Saturday morning.  In the meantime I brushed off my Phillies hat and wondered if I should take my fielder’s glove – just in case?  At dawn I was washed and ready to join the Methodist men.  Mom and I walked to the church where a Public Service chartered bus was idling and starting to fill.  My grandmother had made me two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to “tide me over” for the trek.  We roared off with a bus full – 40 men, 13 boys and mom and me.   A bus trip in 1950 from the Holly City to Philly was much more interesting, albeit also much longer, than the high speed, uninteresting 3 lane highway trip of today.   We traveled state highway 47 – the Delsea Drive.  Delaware to the sea, a winding thoroughfare of shops, villages, towns and a thousand sites to see.  Sites that kept me plastered to the window the whole trip – which by the way took over two hours to drive approximately 38 some miles.  The Sunday school class passed the time singing hymns.  What a Friend We Have in Jesus set the tone as the miles ticked off.  Singing was very common on most group bus trips.  He Walks With Me followed next.  Mr. Mulford, the class teacher, walked from seat to seat greeting and shaking hands.  I dreaded that for two reasons – he was missing his thumb on the right hand (a carpentry accident in his youth 75 years ago I was told) which gave me chills – plus he always crushed my hand with his vise-like grip.   “Hello Marge and Cal”, he offered – I think my mother actually cringed and hoped he wouldn't want to shake her hand also.  He grabbed mine and pumped my arm for what seemed like a minute - I endured this strange but inevitable custom of grownups.  I didn't get it – but I would in years yet to come.

We crossed the giant Ben Franklin bridge – this was indeed a high point (literally) of the trip.   The big bridge was the gateway to a world as foreign to me (and many on the bus) as the planet Mars.  Of course I was an annual devotee of the great department stores on Market Street which we also bussed to once a year at Christmas time to see the wonders of their Toy Departments and trimmings. (But that’s another story)  The bus made an immediate right turn after the bridge and we traveled to a much different looking part of the city.  I saw for the first time house after red brick house – all attached together in a sameness that showed no discernible yards.  Where did the kids play?  Trees grew out of the sidewalks.  Cars were parked everywhere.  And trolley cars, which I had only seen in the movies, rolled by us with sparks flying from the wires above them.   As our bus crossed their tracks we would slide a bit as if we were on an icy road – this part of the trip was scary I must admit.  I sank down in my seat, hardly able to see out the window.  I couldn't get over the number of churches I saw either – there seemed to be a spire on every corner.  And then we were there. 

The main entrance of Connie Mack Stadium, recently renamed after a great baseball man my grandfather told me about – it used to be called Shibe Park when he went there as a kid, he said.  I like the name Connie better, it sounded like a baseball name to me. We were handed tickets as we got off the bus, got them punched at a turnstile and we made our way into the park through a high arched entryway.  And then I saw it.  The Green Field.

The greenest, biggest, brightest green I had ever seen.  (Many years later I could still see that first view in my memory that was right up there with my many other lasting sites only topped by looking over the rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time.)

Seeing the baseball field literally took my breath away – I felt dizzy.  My mother grabbed my arm as I wobbled a bit. Green. A green, pristine, manicured, perfect grass.  And surrounded by at least one million red enameled seats.  Could this many people actually watch a game together? Amazing.  The billboards caught my eye next and shouted familiar slogans I knew from watching our new TV.   The 4th Methodists were in a cathedral to the great American Pastime.  This was the BIG Leagues - indeed.  We were shown our seats behind first base by a man in a red and white vest.  He wiped them off with a cloth and smiled as my mom gave him a dime.  I was in row 34, seat 22.  I still know this because I saved the ticket.  But the game we saw is long forgotten in the blear of the countless ones I have seen since – but it remains the best.  

I will always remember that day accompanied by organ music and announcements from on high that heralded the combatants as they entered the arena.  Cheers and rhythmic applause urged our heroes on to do their best as they made the game look so easy.  The crack of the bats resounded like canons and echoed off the steel girders.  Several pure new baseballs were driven over the high outfield wall like they were shot from cannons.  I had forgotten my mitt – but no foul balls came my way.  The game progressed and I had two hotdogs from a lively vendor announcing “Get your dogs here.”  He was carrying them in a steaming metal box.  He lathered mustard on them with a paint brush.  It made my mouth water.  Next,  I used my allowance on another vendor hawking “Corn in a Horn…Corn in a Horn” – a cardboard megaphone filled with salty popcorn – which I used to cheer on the “Fightin Phils” – Ashburn, Jones, Roberts, Hamner – they were no longer names in the sports pages.  They were here right in front of me! 

We all sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame…at the seventh inning stretch.  And then it was over, just like that.  The Phillies won.   My mom said I could buy a souvenir and she would add to my money if I didn't have enough.  I bought a Phillies pennant on a stick.  It hung on my wall until yellowed with age I left that room for college and I never saw it again.  And I slept all the way home.   

RADIO DAYS

I turned on the TV and started to watch CNN and its continuous drone of wars, fires, death and destruction – always the same, just the names and places change as it goes around the world.  24 hours of despair and I wonder why I ever watch it - very depressing…And then I thought about how it used to be, and I’m back in 1950 carrying my dinner plate to the "zink".

After dinner, which we always ate precisely at 5 on the dot. (and it was called supper by my folks as this was a working man’s household) I would adjourn to the living room tune our big radio and lay down in front of the dark mahogany box.  The warm glow of the dial would light my way to the urgent sound of the William Tell Overture – The Lone Ranger rides again into another episode of adventure for the masked one and his trusty companion Tonto.  The show always began with a  Hi Ho Silver Away!  And they would gallop off to another saga of the old west. 

(Author's note:  Tonto called the Lone - Kemosabe – (Google tells me it means "faithful friend"in the Potawatomi, but a similar word in Spanish also means stupid one?) I guess Tonto really didn't have a first name for his boss, except Lone? - so this salutation established just who was who in their relationship.)

    

The show was just 15 minutes long – just long enough for a crime, a gun fight and the bad guys to be caught and punished - the Ranger always won.  (Unlike today’s computer enhanced dramas where the good guys are usually the bad guys and they get away with violent mayhem as we sit through a 102 car, truck, train, or plane wrecks accompanied with surround sound – fun, fun, fun.  

(Ask a kid today to name a hero – their blank stare is frightening!)  But not for us kids in the hay days of radio. 

And there were a bunch to chose form of cowboy heroes – Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy…Hopalong Cassidy with his two six shooters and the big black hat…and many more, each with their own brand of 15 minute shooting and wooing every night of the week.  And these shows were followed by G-men and Supermen and other guys who could fly, run, climb or swim faster than the bad guys.  We had heroes.

But the Lone Ranger was my favorite – I think it was the mask that did it for me.

I had almost a full hour of the radio adventure until I had to turn the dial over to the proprietors of my life. My folks would discuss “what’s on tonight?” and then they too listened and laughed and cried with their favorite shows.  Indeed the radio was “our theater of the mind” as our imaginations painted wonderful pictures of the world of heroes and villains, comedians and crooners.  And then we all went to bed early.

One day after I got home from school my radio days died a quick death and the big Philco was rarely turned on again. 

George Brown the new TV dealer (and only repairman in town) delivered our first Television set – and our world of listening turned to watching.  He carried in a very big black case of tools and started to install an “antennae” on our roof with a wire leading to our living room. He aimed it with the help of my grandmother who let him know when the fuzz was gone on the small screen.   

A ten inch Admiral TV then came to life. 

That night my uncle, aunt and my cousins crowded with us around the little screen as we watched a crazy guy named Milton (who was wearing a dress) get hit in the face with a giant  pie – now this was indeed entertainment!  Three channels were available.  And for the next few weeks sometimes we just watched a test pattern which hummed until the station started a show.

And that night this hypnotic box of tubes and wires change me, my family and our whole world – forever. 

But that’s another story! 

SATURDAY MATINEE

After a nice walk I thought this is a “great night for a movie”.  And I have over 1000 to choose On Demand.  Far too many choices…And then I think of how I used to have just two choices and I’m riding my bike to take in a Saturday matinee.

I was allowed at 10 years to ride over 2 miles to High street.  And I didn't have to worry about getting bumped off by a road raged driver.  I pedaled all over town unabated.

Now the choice – The Levoy, plush seats, glided stairway to the balcony…and today offering an Abbott and Costello double bill - They would meet the Wolf Man and then Frankenstein’s monster. Too much of the same stuff I think.  I didn't like it when Lou got slapped in the face all the time by Bud – he should have hit him back just once and that would have ended it,

Across the street was the working man’s emporium of flickering dreams – The People’s Theatre.  Deck in high enameled apple green.  Hard pealing wood backed seats.  And an lingering scent of popcorn blended with old socks.  I checked the marquee.  THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WORLD OF THE WORLDS.  Now you’re talking entertainment.  I paid my quarter and entered the musty arena.

I always chose to sit on the three steps next to the fire exit, half way down the aisle.  Actually this perch was more comfortable than a splintery seat.  But first I had to have my traditional movie watching repast.   Fresh buttered popcorn with at least a week of the recommended daily intake of salt.  Now another hard choice.  Good and Plenty’s or I blow the whole budget on a double Reese’s Cup.  I forego the Cups for the pink and white hard confection and I also choose Ju-Ju Beads as a chaser and I still have money left out of my dollar.

The first movie started and the aliens attacked the earth and where finally defeated (which was a fairly disappointing ending) by a case of the common cold…I would rather it ended in a fierce battle.

 

Next the short subject – The Clutching Hand.  A 15 minute mystery which always ended with a cliff hanger as the shadow of, you guessed it – a clutching hand was seen about harm the hero.  And then the real treat.  Beep Beep – the crowd roar was deafening – As Road Runner was missed by a falling safe that Wily Coyote tossed into the Grand Canyon.  Just once I would like to see that bird get his.

The feature began – a movie that would haunt me for years to come.  

It started with a blaring warning horn alerting citizens that a space ship was landing on the grand mall of Washington DC – (alien do seem to do their homework before they visit).  This film was creepy because it was like a newsreel – I started to think about the end of the world, triggered by extraterrestrials and shuddered.  Most science fiction, as it would later be called, was filled with very cheap and unbelievably clumsy monsters – this one was all too real. 

It didn't end with a battle, but with a warning to get our petty earthly problems straightened out before it was too late.  (Remember this was a time when kids practiced getting under our desks in school to be safe from and A-Bomb dropped on Millville.

I left the theater in deep dark thoughts – then something so ironic happened.  Just as I was about to hop my bike the City tested its Emergency Alert System horns that were on the roof of the City Hall.  This scared the h%^l out of me.  Gads – It’s happening.  The aliens, Russian, somebody is bombing Millville. 

I needed to get home…home was safe.  

And if not - I didn't want to perish alone here on High street.  I had never ridden a bike so fast, so recklessly.  I made the 20 minute ride in just 9 minutes flat.  Ran in the house bawling, I hugged my grandmother, who was totally taken by surprise.  Later after I had calmed down – She scolded me, “Serves you right to waste your money on silly movies”, she declared.

And for several years, whenever I heard a siren, I shivered and wonder if this was going to be the day the Earth would stand still. 

NIGHT WITH NANNY

For my readers -
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Nanny Ethel and I are home for a Friday a summer’s eve.  Pop Herb is at a “meeting” at the Eagles lodge (playing cards) and a while after dinner and the darkness of a summer night comes she says, let’s listen to some music?  

She would bring us some cookies and milk and get out some of her treasured collection of those big 78 rpm RCA's records she stored in her closet.  I loved the dog listening to his master's voice on the label  (They were sold years later for 10 cents apiece at a yard sale when she passed)  She started one going and we would sing along with the tinny sound of her small record player.  The sound out of a three inch speaker was nowhere near as good as a cell phone of today – but we had nothing to compare it to and so we loved it.  There was one song on each side of the heavy discs and you had to flip it over to hear another song.  

And what an eclectic collection she had.  

The oldest one – Enrico Caruso singing something in Italian with the Philadelphia Symphony - I thought it sounded like he was singing in a paper bag not in the great Academy of Music - as reported on the red and gold label.  Hoagy Carmichael was next doing a raspy version of his great tune – Stardust.  Nanny always played that one twice and got a bit misty-eyed over it. 

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls… – my favorite lyric of all time.  But at 7 I always was wondering why a wall was sleepy?  Next we played Roger Williams Autumn Leaves – even though it was a very warm night in July.   And so it went.  An evening of remembering for Ethel  – of playing the jukebox at Dixie’s tavern and having a high-ball with a cigarette.  

Slow Boat to China…I Walk Alone…Indian Love Call…tunes spun out with lyrics I could understand.  Not one about hating cops or abusing a girlfriend.  This was real sentiment and it was universal.  It was about love gained and lost, happiness and tears.  But mostly about love.  For me – it was about trying to understand the times that produced these melodies and why they made us both feel so good.  I would see the singers in black and white, like most of the movies we saw.

Nanny asked, “Is it too early for some a Christmas carol?” 

“Never,” I said and we sang  Frosty by Gene Autry; It’s Beginning to Look like Christmas with Perry and a slightly off key version of I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.  Once we got started on the carols it was hard to stop. People walking by must have thought we were a couple of nuts.  But few walked our gravel street on those hot summer nights.

Oh what an evening we had together - one that would make a karaoke devotee envious of our skills. And without TV, Facebook or a bunch of text messages about what somebody had for dinner – those songs were the sound track of my early life…they remain in my head and sometimes I just start singing them again…Sometimes...

 ...I wonder why I spend

The lonely nights dreaming of a song

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you…