THE WOODEN BOWL

A Facebook Friend posted a message today that my dear  8^th Grade “Shop” teacher had passed away – he almost made 100 years old, a great run I thought…unless you are 99…

And then I was in that Bacon School basement room of the machines and the sweet smell of wood and linseed oil. 

The “Shop” as we called it; the “Manual Training” classroom as the educators called it – but it was the place where for a couple of times a week we learned stuff we could really use for a change – the stuff that would last far longer than Latin, or A + B =
…stuff I still use after 60 years.  Thank goodness.

Mr. Moloney was presiding from his “special” workbench at the front of the room. 

We were well into the school year by now, past the basics – like hammers and nails and now into wiring and the much awaited turns on the power woodworking machines that lined the walls.  And the making of “projects” that not only earned us a grade but produce fine things, we made ourselves, that we could proudly take home to mom.  (For some reason, moms always seemed to be the prime recipients of a school boy’s craftsmanship.

My first project was a much better looking bird-house than the crooked one I attempted the past summer.  This one had a little porch and the proper sized round hole – because birds apparently are pretty choosey about where they poke their beaks.  I painted mine with grey enamel and added an apple green roof. 

Next after we practiced some basic wiring we applied ourselves to the creation of a “pump lamp” which was a nifty contraption.  When the pump handle (a dowel on a hinge) was lowered, it pulled the chain of the fixture to turn it on and off – this indeed was a shop boys Moloney favorite.  After the stain dried on my finished creation I carefully took it home and my mom put it on her night table and it illuminated her going to bed routine for decades to come.

But now Christmas was coming and as Mr. M concluded his instruction which focused on the inherent dangers of working with power tools, he showed us the workings of the wood lathe – which we all had been for, and not too patiently waiting to work on since day one.  Every boy since first grade talked about the great adventure of “turning” a masterpiece on this Sears Craftsman beauty.

Mr. Moloney cautioned, “Boys (as there were never girls in this class in this day and age) it time to think about making your moms a nice and useful Christmas present.  Why no turn a beautiful piece of wood on the lathe - that may do the trick.”

My mind immediately shifted from daydream mode to high-gear analysis -  what I could make my mom – on the lathe? 

My primary goal had been to just use the lathe which resided across from the mighty wood pile that fed our handyman endeavors.  Until now the product produced was secondary – but now the product had become much more important – a Mom’s Christmas gift always had to be something very special.  And now this year it wasn’t going to be another bottle of smell-good from the 5 & 10.

But...What could I make?

 Then I was saved by the bell and I had at least a couple of days to ponder as we only took shop two days a week and music the other three.  Music – yuck was all I could say when I thought about tomorrow and another day of sing song torture.  I was definitely not very musical.  

I woke in the middle of the night – my idea hit so hard it actually woke me up form a really great dream – which is not easy but - now I knew what I was going to make my Mom for Christmas.

A family sized salad bowl for Sunday dinners. 

This seemed a perfect job to “turn” out on a lathe.  For one thing, it was round.  And another factor – it had no moving parts; not much to measure, glue together or try to make straight. 

  

On my next day in the shop. Mr. Moloney checked me out on the big lathe explaining how sharp the carving tools were; that one must always where the goggles working here as shards will fly; and most of all TAKE YOU TIME!

He suggested that I “laminate” two pieces of wood together with carpenter’s glue and make a “two-toned” bowl.  “Much nicer with two colors and grains that you bring out when you rub it with linseed oil,” he advised.  I picked a large block of mahogany and another of maple – one dark, one light.  This was starting to “turn out” I thought.

The next class period, nervously I began with Mr. M standing by to make sure I was up to the task.  We practiced on a scrap piece of soft pine wood from the big scrap pile.  “This was easy,” I thought to myself.

But pine I would learn isn’t maple!  Nor is it mahogany – both are hard woods that don’t give up to the cutting tools easily as common old pine.

I began decked in apron and safety glasses.  

The lathe started rotating my big piece of laminated wood faster and faster.  I had carved off the edges of the blocks on a bandsaw.  My plan was to whittle it down a bit and then begin to carve the bowl part of the bowl.  

I touched the tool to the wood – BAM!  The lathe jumped and a big piece of wood went flying across the room.  BAM!  Another chunk hit me in the safety glasses – that I was glad I remember to put on…this wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

I worked for several class periods on my creation, and each turn of the lathe was an adventure.  After several hours of work to my chagrin - my family side salad bowl was now a small sized dish.  I had chipped away more than half the wood.  

Mr. M. came buy as I was finishing up and said, with a slight smile, “Hum I guess Mom is getting a nut bowl instead of a salad bowl this year?  Maybe she can use it for something like that…?”  He walked away with a chuckle.

But I wasn’t laughing.

I had chipped away my great gift idea!  But I knew I had to carry it through.  I hand rubbed my little prize for hours.  Until it shined like satin.  That Christmas my Mom got a gift that held straight pins instead of lettuce - for the rest of her life. 

And for the rest of my life…I had learned a great lesson.  The skills of a craftsman have to be honed with hard work – great crafts take lots of practice.  And Mr. Moloney practiced his craft of teaching young men what they needed most so well - for almost a century – practice does indeed make perfect!

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Life is strange - we wait so long for something and then it shoots by us so fast...

The first week of my senior year at Millville Memorial High school was over - well over for most of us - but we football players had our first scrimmage against another team on Saturday that continued our week into the much appreciated weekend.

I lugged a load of books home - all needed to be covered by Monday or a vicious fate awaited.  

The National Bank distributed "free" one-size fits all covers with the a big "Bank by the Clock" picture and a lot stuff about their services - I assumed this was for the parents who might be grateful that they didn't have to struggle with brown grocery bags, tape and sessiors helping with the homemade protection for the ancient books - some that they may have even had used a decade or more before.

I was a traditionalist and enjoyed making my own so that I could inscribe them with "witty" one-liners I made up or borrowed from the funny papers.  For example on my hated math tome I had printed "Dear Math please grow up and solve your own problems."  (not an original but I thought a very funny one!)

Friday night was looming before me - what to do?  One key fact was I am "in training" which meant that Ole' Rile my line coach might call me at 9:30ish to check if I were home, resting and readying my body for our conquests to come.  

Basically this meant I could go to the dance, but could not hang at the Goodie Shop afterward.

The Millville Music Center, the shop of rental instruments and ten thousand 45's - mostly rock and roll ditties - was sponsoring a "Back to School" sock-hop in a vacant store near their establishment - great advertising with very little expense I thought and decided I would stop by.

When I arrived I was greeted by a fragrent pile of sneakers, Bass Weguun's and Flag Flyers at the door - obviously the purveyors of this big event took the sock part seriously because only shoeless kids were packed in the place dancing to the tune of a  "stereo" booming a beat from two speakers, thus stereo, and using the even newer LP's that stored a couple of dozen songs to play versus the one on each side of a 45 - a marvelous invention that I had already added to my mental Christmas list.

Alan, the kid who played records at the Saturday YMCA dances, was engineering the music (in my day the only DJ's work for a radio station like WIBG, mixing tunes to countless commercials.  

The music was deafening.

Important editotial note:  I went to this dance with absolutely no intention of dancing.  Senior Varsity footballers did not dance, they watched.  

And the new group of freshmen girls were worth eyeballing.  The old adage "familiarity breeds contempt" played a big part in their mystique.  It seems that that laws of the high school jungle prescribed that the girls we used to adore were always to be replaced by the younger class (and we guys thought the much more impressionable) dateables.  

Little did we know at the time that we were never the fishermen - we were always the fish.  And I would learn years later to never, ever underestimate the natural, the born with, predatory genes of found in all females - no matter what the species, age or experience. 

I sauntered over to the far wall where Jim, a football team member was girl watching. 

He said, "Nice."  

And I new exactly what he meant and it was not the music or the decorations which were a haphazard tangle of orange and blue crepe paper hanging from the walls and obviously applied in great hasted by our benefactors.

The music waged on until...  

Alan rolled a slow one next and flipped off the remaining light that had been left on for our collective reputation's sake.  The glow of the passing cars flickered on us through the storefront window and moved with the couples as a school year of romance was unfolding...I made up my mind right then not to rush into anything.

Ray Charles crooned. "I can't stop loving you..."

The song ended and another fast one broke the bluesy mood.  I checked my watch and said, "See ya, curfew calls."  And all the players exited with me.  

I walked 2 miles home imagining and hoping for what this final school year would bring - I was more melancholy about this than happy...I knew even then that this best year of all would be fleeting.

Mom fixed me some chocolate chips for dunking in a coffee cup of milk and just as I was making ready to hit the hay, the phone rang.  Mom got it.

"It's your Coach," she said.

Françoise

I can smell it now in my imagination  - Channel #5 …and then I was back in Millville and it was the first week of my senior year at Millville Memorial…

Thankfully, football camp was over on Labor Day and we had one day of rest.  My sore muscles had sore muscles.  Camp was always hot, tough and those who never played the game will never understand the sacrifice it takes to play it well.

We “hazed” the freshmen as they arrived (Freshman Dazes would not happen today – as for some reason making newbies sing an alma mater has been found to harmful and this could lead to anxiety, insomnia and dandruff in later life.)  I kept my eye out for a couple of South Millville kids to torment – I had been waiting three years for this and it pure and innocent fun for all.

Several days in as I walked to class I spied a gaggle of girls who were having a very animated chat filled with “Oh no, you got to be kidding” and then giggles echoed through the hallowed halls of learning.  I saw Barbara, an art class buddy, “Hey what’s up?  I asked quietly.

She whispered that the whole school was talking about the French Exchange Student, Francoise who was genuinely from Paris.  She had just finished her first gym class and her classmates were “agog completely agog” as Babs said.

Why?  I intelligently responded.

It seems that Fran actually took a shower, walked to her locker naked and the most shocking fact of all – her underwear (what there was of it!) was absolutely see-through all black lacey stuff.

“Yikes” was all I could muster as a French postcard photo danced in my grey cells.

Later that day I saw her outside room 215 history class.  She was tall.  Looked so much older than the girls she was talking with (with that great accent I had only heard till now in the movies).  And she smelled great.  

This was a woman among little girls.  And they flocked around her as if she were a mother hen tending to adoring chicks.

As fate would have it or just blind luck, Gus announced after football practice that he was having a “Going Back to School Party” at his Union Lake house.  Gus celebrated almost everything with a party – Arbor Day, National Cupcake Day – it didn’t matter and usually at least 40+ arrived at his summer home on Saturday sundowns – all hoping that someone, somehow had copped a half keg, or even a pint of something evil.

I arrived fashionably late – and the party was at full bore.  

Laughter, cigarette smoke (produced by the non-athletes of course) drifted from the ancient cottage on the lakefront.  I made my entrance and took my place with my closest friends on the front porch and began to regale them with my never ending nightclub standup act of one-liners.

After an hour of this “fun” and one sip of someone’s flat beer – the party quieted as couples drifted off into the surrounding pines for some more intimate communication.  Bub and Ellen left me alone on the porch.  

And then it happen.

Francoise had come alone after all and she slinked (she did not walk, she slinked) out on the porch, trailing a haze of real French perfume, not Avon's.  She saw me and said, “Why bonsoir Cal Veen – I know of you, and is nice to make your acquaintance…would you care for a cigarette?”  She removed a pack of Gauloise Rouge from her pocket (the French cigarette that I would later try and would find tasted like horse manure, but that’s another tale)

I said, “No thanks but merci,” using my best Boyer impersonation and one of the only French words I knew.  Francoise laughed gently, “Oh bon you speak French!”

“No afraid not, but I did have two years of Latin,” I dumbly mumbled.  

Frankly, she held me in a spellbound state…I for once was actually speechless. After a few minutes of one-sided small talk and me bobbing my head,  

she said, “Woid you like to take a valk vid me?” spoken in a way that sounded like the rustle of bedsheets to my racing Id.  My heart rebed up to double time.

“Me?” I croaked like one of the lake frogs.

“Of course YOU”, she said and took my hand.  Immediately I thought this can’t be happening.  I must be dreaming.  Did someone spike the beer. (No “roofies” were not of my generation - so relax) 

  And so I walked along the beach with her and we talked in the light of a very romantic moon over the lake's romantic waters.  Suddenly she stopped.  “Calvin, I miss Paris…I miss my home…my boyfriend…I miss…."

She then kissed me, fully on the lips - I almost fainted right there in the water’s edge.  With tears in her eyes she smiled at me,  pulled back and ran back to the party.

I sat down on a soft bed of pine needles, stunned.  

I learned two things that night that would last a lifetime.  One, what it was like to kiss a real woman.  And two, that the French really do kiss that way!

Fran left school a few weeks later and returned to Paris - I never did talk to her again after our brief rendezvous  – but I never forgot out walk or the scent of Channel.

---

RAINY DAY MATINEE

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

I was allowed at 10 years to ride over 2 miles to High street.  And my folks nor I didn’t have to worry about getting mangled by a driver crazed with road rage.  I pedaled all over town unabashed.

Now as I parked my bike, the choice – The Levoy, plush seats, gilded fixtures and a great stairway to the Lodge and balcony…and today offering an Abbott and Costello double feature for the price of one - They would meet the Wolf Man and then Frankenstein’s monster this afternoon . Too much of the same stuff I think.  

Plus, I didn’t like it when Lou got slapped in the face all the time by Bud – he should have knock him out just once and that would have ended it.

Across the street was the workingman’s emporium of flickering dreams – The People’s Theatre.  Decked in high gloss enamel green.  Hardwooden backed seats.  And always the lingering scent of popcorn blended with old socks and cigar smoke.  I checked the marquee.  THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WAR  OF THE WORLDS.  Now you’re talking entertainment.  I paid my quarter and entered the musty arena. (Editor's note: The price is not a typo)

At the People's I always chose to sit on the carpeted steps next to the fire exit half way down the aisle.  This perch was actually more comfortable than one of the splintery seats.  But first I had to have my traditional movie-watching repast.   Freshly buttered popcorn with at least a week of the recommended daily intake of sodium. 

And a second round and a very hard choice.  Good & 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 because of this frugal choice I also get a box of Juju Beads as a chaser and still have money left out of my dollar allowance.

I dug into the popcorn and the first movie started.  Aliens attacked the earth and were finally defeated  by a case of the flu…(which I judged was a fairly disappointing ending) I would have much rathered it ended in a fiery battle of death rays. 

Next the weekly serial  came on the screen – The Clutching Hand.  A 15 minute mystery which always ended with a cliffhanger as the shadow of,  you guessed it – a clutching hand, hovered about to harm our hero.  

Next up a real treat.  Beep Beep – the audience of kid- roar was deafening – Road Runner was missed by a falling safe that Wily Coyote tossed into the Grand Canyon.  I waited for years to see just once, that wily bird get his.  It never happened.

And then the second feature – a movie that would haunt me for years to come.  It started with a blaring civil defense horn alerting citizens that something awful was about to happen - it turned out to be a space ship landing on the great mall of our beloved capital, Washington DC – (aliens always 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 the staid extraterrestrial and shuddered.  Most science fiction, as it would later be called, was filled with very unbelievable clumsy monsters – this one was not and it was all too real. 

It didn’t end with a battle, but with a warning. Earthlings, stop screwing around - get your petty problems fixed before it's too late or bingo.  (Remember this was a time when we kids practiced getting under desks in school to be safe from an A- bomb dropped on Millville).  This warning hit me like a punch.

The lights came up but I could not move.  This movie got to me. 

Finally, I left the theatre in deep dark thoughts – then something so ironic happened it could have been scripted.  Just as I was about to hop on my bike the fire siren blared from the fire hall a block away.  This piercing sound was like a knife - it scared the sh#$ out of me...

Good grief – It’s happening.  The aliens, the Russian, somebody is bombing Millville!!!!!!  I needed to get home right away…home where it's safe.  I don't want to get zapped, all alone, here on crummy old High Street.  

I had never ridden my bike so fast, so recklessly.  I made the 20 minute ride in 9 minutes flat.  

I ran into my house bawling, I hugged my grandmother who was totally taken by surprise.  All she could say was, "Did you fall off your bike again?"

Later, after I had calmed down, realized the world wasn't ending and told her my tale of woe  – She scolded me. “Serves you right, Calvin, you should not waste money on such silly movies”, she declared.  "It is not good for a boy your age to see such stuff."

And from that day forward for several years after, whenever I heard a siren's sound, I started to shiver and wondered again if this was it – the Day my Earth Would Stand Still.