AULD LANG SYNE

The New Year has come again, much too fast I fear…And I rifle my mental card file of holidays past and then find one from the 50's, back to our little homemade home in South Millville.  Mom’s out for a festive evening at the White Sparrow in Vineland that boasted of its warm fireside atmosphere…Pop was at the Eagles lodge playing cards and that left Nanny and me and the TV.  

In 1953 we had a new giant box of a TV that my mom bought.  Matter of fact, I remember the first thing we saw after Mr. Brown, the one and only TV repairman in town, delivered it and hooked it to a new device on our rooftop – a TennaRotor,  a small motor that turned the antenna for the best reception.  Nanny worked it a lot but never seemed to get it down pat - even though George guaranteed that it was easy to get a bead on all of the 4 channels we could receive in those days without 4999 choices.

Our first program that October evening, as the picture slowly filled the screen from a small dot in the middle of the massive (to us) 21 inch Motorola screen that replaced our first 10 inch Admiral was a newsreel film of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II which had been flown to CBS network via a military fighter jet which refueled twice over the Atlantic.  This was a first for television news.  It took five hours to cross the Atlantic  that today is delivered in HDTV  via the speed of light.

The year had run its course and the Queen was well established on her throne.  Nanny and I were waiting for our annual viewing of Guy Lombardo and his Canadians New Year’s traditional live broadcast, which started in the golden days of radio,  directly from the Waldorf Astoria Ballroom,  New York City.  As we waited we had our traditional TV watching snacks – Nanny cut a wedge of very sharp cheese into small squares and we munched them on Saltines.  The cheese was so strong it made my eyes water!  Next round – as I kept an eye on the clock – two hours to go to midnight - was homemade chocolate chips and eggnog!  Nanny made me promise that I would not tell Mom that she gave me (just this once) her concoction that she spiked with a hefty dose of Four Roses.  “Don’t get pie-eyed like your Pop Pop,” she warned.  I was on my way that night,  at ten years old, toasting many futures New Years to come.

11 O’clock came fast as we finished our next snack – Mom’s famous Apple-less Apple Sauce cake which had ten thousand raisins in it instead of sliced Mackintoshes.  A secret recipe that only those moms who read the Ladies Home Journal would know.  I loved that cake and it was a tradition to have a very large slice every year until my mother stopped baking and bringing a large cake to me.  It was a great dark brown spicy concoction - that only mom seemed to make correctly – many others tried but failed to make one as good as she.  Mom credited her success to the white, well used and chipped enameled pan handed down from her grandmother.  

The clock was ticking down as Guy’s guys played his famous rendition of Pennsylvania Polka – Nanny and I sang along and we were both in good voice tonight.  During a commercial I raced to find the  hats and horns saved for years and found them in the far reaches of my bedroom closet/toy depository/hiding spot.  Nanny put on a cardboard tiara and I wore a pointed clown beanie.  This year I chose a horn that rolled out a foot long tube of paper and made a blatting sound when it was totally unfurled.  Nanny always took the metal box-like one with the little handle that made a song like a dying moose.  The confetti started to fall in our TV ballroom – Guy proclaimed,  “Haaapppppy Newwwww Year everyone”, and with a downbeat of two foot baton the orchestra struck up their  trademark low and moaning sound playing the yearly song that nobody few actually  know all of the words or what it has to do with a new set of days.  We made noise and I hooted a couple times out the kitchen door.  Nanny turned off the TV and the picture collapsed to a dot as the big tube cooled down.  She kissed me on the cheek and said, “Happy New Year. OK time for bed.”  And that ended my 10th year’s celebration of our world travelling around the sun and back again. 

I have celebrated many more revolutions – over 77; some sober and alone; others loaded to the gills and celebrated in very tipsy crowds after a gourmet meal.  I even spent one on New York City’s famed Broadway and saw the great ball come down high above over two million revelers. (After dodging a flying beer bottle!)  But honestly, those fleeting eves in our little home with Nanny remain the sweetest – for when we are young we look forward with excitement and anticipation to another year to come.  But as we grow old,  there comes a time when we surely regret another old year passing as we try to sing...Guy's song once again.

(Click link for a memory of your own) - Auld Lang Syne

CHRISTMAS COLORS

Every Monday after Thanksgiving I would start my annual project that continued throughout my elementary school days after I did the first one in third grade for Miss Russell – and this year I was determined to out-do last year’s chalkboard Christmas mural (and yes we were allowed to call the season Christmas in those days)  This temporary picture, my last year before high school, was going to be my final masterpiece.  I decided on the subject that I wanted to do and got the shoe-box of colored chalk that had been collected over the years.  I had been given time off from regular school work  in every class for six years at each major holiday to express myself on the blackboards that wrapped around our classroom and in those days; they were black, not green or white or electronic.  A daily dose of chalk dust permeated our kid's lives for nine and a half months each year.

To get a new idea for this year, I had surveyed all the Winter issues of the Ideals Magazine in our school library - this was the teacher's Bible for  bulletin boards.  The scene I choose to duplicate was in the December 1957 issue - a classic Raphel type scene rather than a comic book cartoon.

 (Editor's note: In the 50's religious subjects were permitted to be discussed and celebrated in the public school.  At the start of every day that I went to elementary school a student had read a chapter of the old testament and we then recited the pledge of allegiance to the flag which was in the front of every classroom (although most of us didn't know what an allegiance was - but that’s a subject for other blogs, podcasts and rants on Twitter.)

    Back to my story.  This year I would produce a Nativity that used not one - but all of the blackboards in the classroom - it was to be a lifesize tableau and I would finally become to Bacon School's blackboards what Michelangelo was to the ceilings.

And so I began...the Wise Men came first, riding camels from the left.  This year I added something totally avant garde to my creation.  Along with the shepherds coming across the room from the right, wanting to touch all bases in our kid's world, I added Rudolph the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman in a stand of pines decorated with actual red and green paper chains.  I used the giant jar of paste that every class had and every kid I had tried a taste to stick silver stars on the black sky.  These were the kind we got for a 100 on a spelling test.  Lastly, I added a large Star of David hovering over the stable.  However, I must admit that I stretched my labor out as far as I could to keep me out of doing arithmetic.  One day while I was working on final touches and shading another teacher came into our classroom and interrupted a lesson in diagramming a split infinitive or something like that?  After a brief hushed conversation with my beloved teacher I was told that I had been drafted to create another mural for this teacher's classroom.

Those weeks before our long awaited Christmas vacation I did four other blackboards of various subjects for various teachers.  I had become for Bacon School's holiday blackboards what Michelangelo was to ceilings.

  

KNOCK AT THE DOOR

I received a Christmas delivery today of an online purchase - no knock at the door, it was just waiting on my doormat until I discovered it had arrived.  This made me think about the days growing up when people came to our door all the time…

…and I'm back in Millville and there’s a knock on our backdoor.  This was always exciting for me, a preschooler home with grandmother Ethel with one year until kindergarten.  My grandmother took off her homemaid apron - she never answered the door with it on. I guess she didn’t want to be mistaken for our maid, which wasn't very probable in our home.  I was always excited to see who was there.  This time it was a person who scared me everytime he made his monthly visit.  My grandmother didn’t like him much either.  She called him a “peddler”?  And that he was.  He was the “pin peddler” whose case was filled with buttons, straight pins (which seems to be always getting lost) and thread of every color I could think of.  I can’t imagine how he could make a decent living now - but then in our factory workers' town most of the ladies of the house sew, mended and adapted our clothes to make them last.  My grandmother looked at me with her “oh no” rolling of her eyes.  And I remember why she thought this salesman was a pest - talked too much and kept her from our chores.  Ten minutes later after hearing his pitch again, she did need some black thread, paid him 25 cents and was back in her apron.  I have to admit I like standing behind her  and watching as the old man showed her his newest stuff.

These were the days long before one could buy something and never utter a word to another living soul.  The milkman left milk at our door every few days and knocked to collect his money once a week.  He worked for our local dairy and also supplied us with butter, cream and cheese.  Another visiter was the Bond Bread man - who came once a week (or more if Nanny requested something special).  He had a large tray filled with donuts and pies which hung on one arm.  Nanny always asked me what I would like even though I always said, “Cinnamon Buns”!  I can still taste their freshness, matter of fact many time they were still warm from baking.  And I have yet to taste any since those days as good as they were - fresh, really sticky and covered with  pecans.  

And there were more visitors I look forward to seeing.  The mailman actually came to our door and sometimes personally handed her a package.  The meter readers all took time out to chat with us…and so it was in the days when we talked with people. 

Technology today in just seven decades for me has made many things easier and instant - but as it connected us to the world it has also made us so far apart.  The electronic age is a very lonely time for many - when there is rarely a knock at the door. 

A Birthday Wish

The years roll by and I check off another birthday, number 79 - on my mental calendar. So far, so good as they say! We  mark our lives with birthdays and holidays and those days are the best days of our lives and stay in our minds like no other days of a long ago. 

When I was young I couldn’t wait to have another birthday – kids are always looking forward to something: a two wheeler; the first Scout uniform; drivers training.  But at my age we say please "slow down"!  My growing up days turned into months and the years flowed like fine wine from nature's cafafe - much too quickly.  

My first birthday?  I certainly can’t remember that one but I can see imagine it from a few fading pictures - me in a high chair with a pointed paper party hat and cake icing all over my face.  This the standard infant birthday pose.   (Most of us all have a box or drawer pictures that illustrate the days we were too young to remember – many times we just think we remember them.)  In another photo I am dressed like a sailor – my father was a medic in the Pacific landing on the beach at Iwo Jima the day I was born – one of the bloodiest days of that awful war.  When he was stationed in Hawaii he sent me a genuine Hawaiian shirt and sandals for my second birthday – my one and only present from him as my mother and he were divorced as soon as he returned from the service.  He never sent me a birthday present after that.  Which now as a GrandPa Cal I believe was his great loss not mine.

And so the years passed... as the photo collection grew, my journey now in Kodacolor. When I reached 10 years I finally got that long awaited Cub Scout Pen Knife that I had yearned for until Mom decided I was  old enough to have a dangerous weapon.  I could now whittle large chunks into small chunks an earn a Cub Scout badge (which I now know the main purpose was to sell badges along with all the other scouting add-ons. The Boy Scouts was one of the great marketing ploys in history so far). 

And the gifts, rather than the days, become the milestones of  my memories; their cost grew as I did:  

12 years = Schwinn Black Beauty, the best bike ever.  

14 = A blue bowling ball with “Cal” engraved on it.              

16 = A Remington electric razor with the caveat from Nanny, “Calvin, you are getting there”!  (She said that every year on my birthday and his too)

And in a wink my special days were being marked with crayoned signs made with love by my kids.  Balloons greeted me when I came home from work on my big day – daughter Lisa made me a lopsided pottery bowl-ashtray-container something one year in art class which I still keep change in on my bureau; son Jon created a homemade card – Roses are Red…Violets are Blue…You’re still young at 32.  Barb, the oldest, would make her first cake from scratch. It was blue inside and out. The number of candles didn’t fit on top of her cake so I blew out one for each decade. 

Time gobbled up my days.  Grandmother Ethel always said that the older I would get the faster the years will go by.  She was so right.  It seems like just yesterday we all were together around the kitchen table; Pop, Nanny and Mom as I with just a few candles to extinguish and wishes for simpler things.  They sang and then we laughed…there was always lots of laughing in my home growing up.  Like my years my folks are all gone now.  No more counting the years for them.  Yes Nanny as you always said – you finally got there after all.  

My birthday wish this year, after the one candle was out on my favorite restaurant's annual free cupcake - I wish as last year, that I could have just one more birthday with them all...just once more... and that I would have another cupcake...next year.

THAT NU-CAR SMELL

It’s mid-October 1954 and I can’t wait for this year’s new cars to be delivered for 1955.  Pop Pop Herb and I always went to see their debut.  Mori Motors had trumpeted their arrival for weeks in the Millville Daily Republican paper.  On TV almost every commercial did the same.  II can still hear Dinah Shore singing it in my head now...

See the USA in your Chevrolet

America is asking you to call

Drive your Chevrolet through the USA

America's the greatest land of all

So make a date today to see the USA...And see it in your Chevrolet...

And Pop and I  will be there first in line to see one - this is almost as good as Christmas, well maybe not - but for an October week night it beats watching TV.  Oh boy, the new Chevy's. My upper lip started  to sweat just thinking about one.  I knew those babies were in town delivered in the dead of night so nobody would get a peek at these chrome behemoths of the American by-ways and hi-ways.

The Mori showroom had Bon Ami covering its windows for over a week so no auto devotee could see inside before the official premiere.  But it was time.  We got in my grandfather’s black, overly big ‘49 Buick and drove to the dealership.  As we drove I reviewed in my mind the recognized “pecking order” of cars - Cadillac the best, Buick next, Olds & Pontiac, less luxury but still special and then the common man's chariot - the Chevy - all built by one great company that made our number #1 selling gas gulping guzzlers.

There’s a crowd waiting in front of the large showroom windows - OK,  maybe 8 people but...the big door opened and there they were.  The new model Chevy's had arrived. “Wow  - Pop look at those colors!” As a car connoisseur considered the Buick to be very staid, but a bit stodgy.  But the Chevy, the working stiff's steed – they were "sporty".  And the new models were Perfect this year, a blend of dashing but delicate grill work combined with subtle use of chrome trim  - (There were no soaring monumental pointed fins yet - those came in a couple of years - and that would be a banner car year event).   I sat in the two door BelAir - a two tone green and white honey with white walls and deeply inhaled - there is nothing in a male's life (well almost nothing) that makes one drool like the new car smell!  It can't be duplicated, nor can it be explained - it just is.  I start to dream of getting my driver’s license.  But at nine that was going to be awhile.  But dreams are what much of life is made at any age. Tomorrow night we planned to go to Edwards Motors to see the new Pontiac with its Indian Chief hood ornament which leads  the way to adventures – "Now that car always has something different," grandpa said each year. 

These were the days when the car was king for men and boys and they all were different.  Today they all look the same and seem.   I find them fairly boring.  For my grandchildren they have become just a way to get around while texting friends as they are carted from organized play dates or a soccer game. But for me, back then they were hot stuff -  seeing a new model each year renewed my faith in America and kindled my imagination of what many things would be in the future.  

FALLING LEAVES

      

  My grandfather always raked leaves on the first weekend in October every year when our small front lawn was covered in many varities and colors - and this year, 1953 wasn’t different.   I was “volunteered” to help by my mom.  And each year I asked – “Pop why do we rake leaves when they all will blow away?”  He would chuckle whenever I asked this kind of  question which I know now as a grandfather myself are so funny.  He answered, “Because someone else should not have to do our work.” My grandfather was right again, and as I grew he taught me many lessons about responsibility.  (A lesson which few kids (and adults) seem to have not learned from anyone.)

            And so, we raked.  There were many more leaves than could ever come from the few trees in our year – I knew they had blown from other yards and this made me sure we should just let ours go with the wind.   I pulled my rake faster.  Soon we had gathered a great mound at the curb – a pile that just needed my yearly jumping into.  I rolled in them and tossed leaves above my head, forgetting my task for a moment as Pop watched and shook his head.  Laying on my back he agreed to cover me with a leafy blanket – but with his usual warning, “Don’t you ever do this alone…a truck ran over a boy in a pile of leaves once and squashed him!”  “I won’t Pop,” I replied as I wondered if it hurt a lot to be squashed?

In my younger days we didn’t have big plastic lawn bags like today, and we could burn our leaves at the curb (which was permitted before it was decided that leaf smoke was a danger to humanity).  After the lawn was cleared came the fun part of my leaf duty – Pop struck a wood kitchen match,  and soon we had our Autumn Pyre.  Our big pile crackled and hissed and produced smoke that, for me, smelled better than Old Spice. 

There is something about smelling burning leaves that stirs me.  Today I see the end of another year as the days grow shorter and the winds of change blow.  But as a kid the scent ushered in the best time in the “kid-year” – the time for turkey, pumpkin pie and presents was coming. 

My Grandmother Ethel called these days “Indian Summer” (no matter if the temperature was warm or chilly?  I knew she also liked the aroma of burning leaves too that seeped into her kitchen.  She always told me it reminded her of a time long ago, when she was bright, young and colored in red and gold.  

FACTORY LESSONS

Even though I moved away almost 50 years ago I still read about Millville on-line. Yesterday there was an announcement that the Wheaton Glass plant was closing…the lifeblood of the city’s working person…the factory.  And I remembered my first day of hard work in my life….

Wheaton Glass Circa 1962

…My first job was filled with surprises for sure.   I dressed in the standard factory garb – tan khaki pants and white tee shirt.  And had my first pair of ‘work' shoes – hard toed heavy black ones that my dad insisted that I wear that first day.  They made my feet sweat.  Dad worked at the plant in the “Pentagon” as the executive offices were fondly called by the unwashed.  He was a model maker and master craftsman.  He dropped me off at the north gatehouse and I joined the parade of zombies marching to another shift in the steamy heat of summer.  I didn’t recognize any except a couple of my newly graduated friends trudging along.  There wasn’t much conversation and very few smiles.

Entering the vented roofed smokey building the temperature rose from a pleasant 70’s on this June morning to what seemed to be close to what hell feels like.  It had to be 100 degrees – and thus why they called this area of the plant the “hot end.”  But more than the heat the noise was overwhelming.  A constant dissonance;  a droning that I would learn came from the glassblowing machine behemoths as they “blew” molten glass into bottles.  

(Glassblowing bottles bgan with a  journeyman of the craft and a long blowpipe.  Today the glass manufacture is mechanical and involves three furnaces. The first, which contains a crucible of molten glass, is simply referred to as "the furnace". The second is called the "glory hole", and is used to reheat a piece in between steps of working with it. The final furnace is called the "lehr" or "annealer", and is used to slowly cool the glass, over a period of a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the pieces. This keeps the glass from cracking or shattering due to thermal stress. Historically, all three furnaces were contained in one structure, with a set of progressively cooler chambers for each of the three purposes - Wikipedia) Hovering around each machine were was a man soiled in oil and grime who constantly checked gauges and tinkered with the levers and cranks on the machine.  His job was a skill perfected over many years of hard work labor.  I would learn that these men were the “Operators” and held the highest status and union title in the production of the plant.

 I followed the mix of women and men around the machines and made my way between a series of lehrs with their never ending parade of bottles moving slowly toward the “packers”.  When I applied I had been told to report to the office.  This small room of several desks was the only one that had air conditioning – walking in chilled me, but not as much as my “chilly” reception.  I was met by my “foreman” whose demeanor frankly scared the heck out of me. I knew him from the outer world.  His son and I played football together.  But here in the plant he had a totally different personality.  He immediately made it clear that he was the “boss” and not a friend.  In less than 10 seconds I was given my gate pass, signed a injury release form and was told to go to the far end of the packing department and report there to the assistant foreman who was out on the floor.  I met this second in command boss who tersely said, “See this damn mess (a cluttered bunch of cartons, broken pallets and other stuff that I didn’t recognize) move it all down to the other end of the building and sweep up this area. Use that hand truck.  Use that broom.  Mr. Wheaton likes a clean and uncluttered factory.”  And he marched away and my first real work day had begun.  I didn’t mind the job even though it did seem a bit below my skill level – I was a high school graduate and soon to be a college freshman and an anomaly compared to most of the workforce !  I spent a very boring day moving a ton of stuff about 100 yards across the packing house.  Twice the assistant foreman stopped by,  looked, laughed and left without comment.  I guessed I was doing what was required?  As I finished sweeping the area for the fifth time to a pristine concrete shine my work day was suddenly over – and it could not have come quicker, my legs were screaming.  I don’t think I had ever stood on my feet that long in my life. 

Lesson one - there was no “sitting” in this packing house, except for two 10 minute breaks and a half hour lunch.  That night at supper I described my day and my dad’s only remark was, “that’s factory work for ya.”  

I reported to the same assistant foreman the next day.  He looked at me, shook his head and with a bit of sarcasm said, “See that stuff you moved yesterday?  Bring it all back here to where you found it.  And take your time – you have all day to do a good job.”  Good grief, I now got it. My first task in the plant was “busy work”. The sem–boss was making up work for me because they could not just have me standing around getting paid for nothing.  I had to look busy and get paid for doing nothing.  This second day seemed twice as long as the first – but my legs were not so tired at the end.  Plus, I was getting used to the constant noise, dust and heat.  I also learned to relish my lunch break sandwich as I absorbed the bickering of the regulars.  Their standard conversation centered on baseball and escapades of certain wild women/men for the most part.  I would hear variations of these themes for the entire summer.

The next day I was assigned to my real job -  “packing” and learned the task from a gnarled old guy who had been doing this robotic job for 40+ years.  I figured that my first two days were to help me get familiar with the swelter and the sweat.   I stood in one spot on a rubber mat for the next 7 hours. The packing job was not hard to learn.  But there were rarely any breaks in the line.  When one started to pack they did it for two hours without stopping until their official 15 paid rest break - which was 15 minutes off the job.  However the break room was about a 3 minute walk so the actual break was 9 whole minutes.  I did this routine for the next ten weeks.   But more than the work I mastered of a speedy packer who inspected each bottle for flaws - I learned some of the greatest lessons of my life.  

It took me just three days of packing to understand that I had to study hard and graduate from college.  I learned how tough life is without college education and how hard many people in my town worked to put food on the table and give their kids a better life.  And most of all I found that bosses weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be…after all. 

GRADUATION

Millville Memorial High School Graduation Day 1962 finally came, and I wasn’t jubilant as most of my friends – I was a bit sad.  I loved school, every grade.  I seemed to know what to expect each year as I progressed through the grades, but now I had no idea what would be next.  On literally the last day I had decided to turn down my scholarship to the very prestigious Philadelphia Museum College of Art and instead go to the nearby state college only 20 miles from home.  I said this was for financial reasons but in reality I had "cold feet" about Philly and the competition I was going to face.   My face saving plan was to commute, live at home, get “A’s” and transfer next year to a major school.  I traded a national scholarship (award to only one student each year) to have my mom remind me to do my homework!  But an upside to this decision was the fact that the ratio of my “temporary institution'' was seven females to ONE male.   (I never transferred, abandoned my plan and completed four years at this state teacher’s college. But that story comes later - I’m getting ahead of myself.)  

Back to my high school graduation and it’s historic traditions that every student had to endure.  The worst was being tortured by sweating to dehydration wearing a rented polyester choir robe which was a heat sponge.  And I had to do this three times;  once in a steaming church;  at an awards convocation in our school auditorium and lastly on an earlyWednesday evening in the middle of the parched football field.  In the packed stands were my beaming parents, friends.  Another mysterious tradition, whey we all were forced to beanie with a square board and tassel attached to top.  I thought a small propeller like in the Sunday comics would have been a lot better.

As we baked on that late Spring evening with the temperature still hovering around 80 I tried to look like I was listening to countless speeches about our bright futures.  Each message was the same at every graduation I attended there after -  Work hard, do your best, keep learning and most important, save your money and all would be great – hopefully.  And then it finally ended as the sun finally set.  Our high school band also suffering in their winter wool uniforms struggled through the last tradition, playing  Pomp & Circumstance (a lot of us giggled because we called it “Pump and Circumcise” - we were graduates but still really kids that was certain. 

The next day, my one summer day off for the next four years, I went to the beach with my buddies.  The next day, sporting a third degree sunburn (my first mistake for the beginning of working life) I was to report for work at Millville's big glass factory.  It was the highest paying summer job for college-bound kids in town (it took only one day to find out why?).  Employees' kids got preference for these highly prized jobs and so Dad had made sure I got one. I was scheduled to start my working life at midnight.  Shift work – the torture continued.  I had never been up this late.   Mom packed my new metal lunch box – peanut butter and jelly; a lemon Tasty Pie (it would take years and pounds for us both to learn about a healthy diet.  But to her credit, she did add some carrot sticks). I had an old thermos filled with cold milk. (Every day after it would be filled with black coffee)

At eleven-thirty I was at the gatehouse and the guard directed me to the shift foreman’s office and I walked with the steady stream of “regulars” into what I would learn that night was called the “hot end”.  It was filled with glowing molten glass being blown into bottles by giant puffing behemoths.  I now knew what “hot as hell” meant. The roar of massive machines cancelled out all other sounds.  I watched, with fascination,  as white hot gobs of glass were pumped into molds and after a sizzle a the molds opened like a book and a completed bottle was deposited on a large conveyor belt; row by row like soldiers, they marched into a long dark tunnel.

The tunnel, I learned, was called the “leer” and it was designed to slowly cool the bottle from 2600 degrees to a warm temperature that could be packed into boxes at the far end of the metal belt that was moving at about 3 miles an hour.

The “boss” Mr. F (packing house foreman) greeted me in his air conditioned office which felt like the arctic in comparison to the heat I just walked through.  His first words, “So you are another college kid, huh!”  My nerves went up a notch.  “I’ll give you an “easy job” to start this week and on your next day shift.  One of my day guys will show you how to “pack’em and put’em in a box.”   Mr. F. walked me down to leer #2 and a few feet in front of the  “packers”.  They never looked up from their mechanical toil of inspecting a handful of small bottles and each in cartons.  I was taught my job in less than 15 seconds.  I was to take a metal plug and shove it into the neck of each bottle as they came on the belt of the leer. If the gauge came out easily I would let the lucky bottle continue its journey to the packer. If the thing stuck I was to toss defects into a bin behind me.  I was the judge and jury that decided the life or death for a medicine container.  The boss had me try it a couple of times and my instructions were over.  I thanked Mr. F and he replied with a surprise, as if I were crazy and walked away to his very cool office shaking his head.  At precisely midnight a loud buzzer sounded the shift change and the tired robots were replaced with new robots. The machines never rested 24/7 unless a part broke down.   I took my place and began my labor.  “This is easy!” I said, but no one could hear me as the hum of the factory drowned out all sound except never ending hum of the machines.  (A sound I now know caused the loss of certain frequencies in my hearing – but of course workers safety wasn't a big factor in my day)

I shared the job with a person across from me.  She worked half of the rolling belt and I got the other half.  There were rows of 50 bottles each for about 100 yards to where they were born.  Grabbing the first few was easy but as I worked my way across I had to bend and reach as far as I could to get the last few of my 25 – this easy job became a killer in less than an hour.  I had to keep moving to keep up with the never ending march of the bottles.  I would not get my break until 2 AM.  Then I waited (what seemed longer than a math class) until 3 AM for my half hour meal (euphemistically called lunch in the lunchroom); and another 10 minute respite at 6 AM.  A time now slowed to a crawl as I worked on the longest night of my life.  By the end of the first hour the constant bending was killing me and I had cramps in both legs.

I learned a lot that night:  Go to the bathroom before the shift starts - Men sit at separate tables then the women in the lunchroom - Conversation is about baseball, horse racing or which co-worker was “running around” with somebody - All regular workers smoke except me - One could sweat standing still - Time truly is relative - Regulars expect part timers to return from breaks early to give them more rest time - The sun comes up early! And this lesson was more valuable than I had from all of my high school classes:  Stay in school, and get a degree - Manual work is much harder to do.

The Dentist

“Don’t forget your toothbrush,” was usually my final reminder after “hope you packed enough underwear” whenever I left for a trip to any place that was more than 5 miles from home!  I think of this because my son and his family are taking a weekend away…and then I think of the dentist.

When I became old enough to brush by myself my mother seemed to be obsessed with my teeth.  I started did the standard routine of brushing in the morning and before bed that lasted for the next 70+ years.  She saved all of my “baby teeth” and kept them in the metal file box under her bed that preserved all of her important papers, certificates and paid bills - apparently they were for the Calvin Museum when I became famous. (Fame for me was one of her expectations for my future).  When the last of my “milk-teeth” was snacthed from under my pillow by the tooth fairy her concern increased to preserve my second set of permanent chippers.  She regularly warned me that candy would “rot” my teeth - especially chocolate bars which was a constant kid need for me and my gang. I think this was partly due to the fact that my grandmother put her teeth in a jar of water when she went to bed.  My mother many times reinforced the fact that Nanny had not teeth but she had “her own teeth” and did so until her earthly brushing were done. I was glad she didn't have someone else's teeth.

When most of my second teeth were in place she started taking me to the dentist every six months, another habit I continue as I course through my journey.  And I dreaded this day - the appointment was circled on our kitchen calendar so we wouldn’t forget.

Dr. Abrams was the maven of pain. His office was above the “5 & 10” store on High street - Millville’s downtown.  We always had an appointment on a Saturday afternoon which canceled my weekly double feature at the movies - this made it even more depressing.  I say we because she always attended my tortures and waited for a report on my oral cavity condition.  To get to Dr. A’s office we had to climb a creaking ancient stairway of foot-worn steps which was for me a “dead man walking” occasion akin to the movie that gave me the creeps.  Over the years since I remember the smell - which all medical facilities seem to have - a combination of the aroma of alcohol and waxed floors.  My first sniff made me start to sweat.

Making matters worse Dr. A always greeted us like long lost relatives.  He bubbled over with joy and always remarked - “Marge, Calvin has grown a foot since last time - ho ho ho.  And behind him I could see in his antiseptic dungeon the chair of doom with it’s many gadgets surrounding it. Once I settled into the chair went up down up again and then back the doc began to poke my teeth with a metal hook.  I waited literally with “baired breath” to hear him sigh “Oh My.”  This sent shivers because he found a cavity.  I could her Mom mutter “Oh no…”  And I wondered if she said that because of my condition or she was thinking that my bi-annual visit fee just went “ca-ching”.  Dr inserted a six inch long needle in my gums and in a minute the whole side of my head was numb and drool started running down my chin.  He handed me a tissue and stared the filling that would save me from my grandma’s fate.  He lowered a complicated arm that drove the drill and jammed something in my mouth to keep it open which immediately triggered the gag reflex. (Today’s dentist use a high speed self contained device in my early days this was a mini-version of an oil well drill that was powered by a humming set of pulleys and springs.  And the grinding sound began accompanied by the scent of something on fire…this finally induced a slight need to faint.  What really got me was that he hummed during the whole process with a learning glint in his eye - he enjoyed his work.  He also narrated each step everytime I endured one of his mining expeditions well into my late teens.  When he proudly announced that he was forcing “real silver” into the whole I knew the end was near - and not too soon.  My face would be dumb for another hour or two.  Mom always bought me an ice cream sunday before we went home.  And she always told me that the “slight discomfort” was for my own good.  Looking back I believe now that she was right.

I don’t keep my teeth in a glass when I retire for the night.

Go Fly a Kite

With tuppence for paper and strings

You can have your own set of wings

With your feet on the ground

You're a bird in a flight

With your fist holding tight

To the string of your kite

(Let’s Go Fly a Kite - Mary Poppins 1964) 

On page 39 of the Cub Scout Handbook I saw I could earn not one but two badges - Science Fun and Built.  And the task which look very easy - making a kite.  So after I did my homework one night my grandfather and I made of list of materials according to the images for a “traditional paper kite” as the schematic in the handbook.  (Today’s Cub wouldn’t build anything but would earn a badge in “Drone Piloting” as it soared and captured video that was delivered to his personal personal iPad device)

Materials: 

1. Two light thin dowels - each approximately 36 inches long. (Pop said he would get two pieces cut to size at his work.

2. Two sheets of newspaper - that was easy for me to supply. We got the Daily Republican newspaper 6 days a week.

3. Glue - mom has a bottle of LaPage’s Spreader Mucilage (glue I called it with the red rubber thing that measured out the stuff when you held it upside down.)

4. 200 feet of string and it noted it was available on a spool at my local friendly Cub/Boy Scout Supplies store at Franks’ Men & Boys stoe.  (Seeing this in the plan really got me excited as I imagine my kite soaring about everything on our street.)

In a couple of days we had all the parts and it was building time.  Pop and I meticulously followed the handbook instruction:

1. Draw your kite sail. Lay your paper or bag smoothly on a flat surface (if it is a piece of paper make sure it is folded in half), and mark three dots to form an isosceles triangle. …(wow this was math and science I noted)

2. Cut out the kite sail. ...

3. Build kite structure. ...

4. Tape kite sail to the four ends 

5. Attach your line. ...

6. Make a tail.

7. Go Fly your kit 

We finished and I rushed outside.  “Huston we have a problem”  would have been my appropriate Nasa message.  There was absolutely not even a breeze - let alone a wind which was the key ingredient Pop and I didn’t think about.  As my Grandmother Ethel would say when something went wrong…, “The best laid plans of mice and men…” She never finished this sentence and just let it hang.  The most important part of a kite was in nature’s hand and the element was way out of ours.  Hours waiting turned into forever as there was no wind for the whole weekend.

A couple of days later Pop came in from work and said it’s blowing and it’s time.  Once again, I carried my project to our back yard.  Pop said, “Let out a couple feet of string and run across the lawn and it will start to fly.”  I did it.  The kit flew up to the end of the string about 10 feet above my head and then made a dive at the ground.  I tried again and again as the kite started to look traumatized from it’s short destructive flights.  Pop shouted, “Stop…we forgot the tail!” And he went into his garage. “A tail?” I wondered just what that was.  He returned with a few feet of rags tied together and attached to the bottom point of my kite.  I ran again and felt my kite literally take off and tug at the line. “Let some out slowly,” Pop yelled as I stopped dashing and the kite was flying high.  Higher it soared as I let out the line a little at a time.  When it was really high I discovered that I could “steer” it by pulling the string.  It danced back and forth. I yelled to Pop, “Look at it…this is great…we did it.”  And the instant after I had proudly disclaimed our success, disaster struck.The string ran off the spool, all 200 feet was gone and so was my kite.  Higher an higher it soared like an eagle until it was just a speck in the sky.  I sat on the ground getting ready for a big cry - but pop consoled me with is usual remark when something like this happened.  “Oh well it was fun while it lasted.”  And we both started to laugh hysterically and then we went in for supper. Later that night I wondered how far the west wind carried  my kite flew on its own.  I imagined a kid in Iowa watching it diving toward it dystiny and then seeing that it was a kite made of a paper from Millville, New Jersey…printed a week ago.

PLAY BALL

My grandmother Ethel told me that my grandfather John, who died very young from the effects of the first world war, loved baseball. She remembered he played “first baseman”.   When I heard that I decided I would play that position too  – even though I really didn’t know how.   I knew that baseball was a lot like kick-ball we played on the Wood School playground at recess and of course I saw the Phillies games on TV – but I would learn that was not like playing the game.

I asked my mom for a baseball glove and she thought it was a great idea.  On Saturday the first week in May a week before the Little League tryouts we visited Bob’s Sportscenter.  Mr. Bob was very helpful and advised that I shouldn't buy a big oversized first baseman's mitt.  He said, “As a beginner you don’t know where you may play, so the standard fielder’s mitt is the first glove for any position.  I was disappointed but settled on the Wilson Richie Ashburn model 2000 and Mr. Garton let my mom pay for it a few bucks each week, as it was $23.98, which came to almost half her weekly paycheck.

I practiced for hours throwing a tennis ball against the wall of our house.  Thump, and back came a hot grounder.  I got good at fielding bouncing wall balls – I would learn in a week that this had little to do with a hot grounder coming at you from a good batter.   At the tryout I was nervous when one of the coaches inspected my birth certificate. He said I was the right age but he looked a bit dubious after checking because I was twice as big as any of the other kids on the field.  Tonight, if I made it,  I was going to get my chance to play in a real uniform. 

The first thing we did was field ground balls.  A coach hit them to us on the grass less diamond.  I was very surprised to see how fast a hit traveled across the diamond. It  was nothing close to how I diligently practiced.  I watched how the other kids sort of squatted at the ready and tried it when it was my turn.  The first hit went right between my legs.  The next one took a wild bounce and caught me right on the chin.  I saw stars.  I said to myself, “Please don’t cry…please…please.”.  After I muffed another one, the coach yelled next.  I couldn’t believe I had missed 3 out of 3.  Next we lined up for batting.  I had played catch with my dad and grandfather but I had  never batted!  I watched the kid before me in line as the coach pitched to him.  It didn't look all that hard to do…until I tried to do it.  My turn came.  I took my place next to the rubber plate.  Tugged my hat as I saw the pros do on TV.  The coach threw the ball.  I never saw it.  Matter of fact, I wasn't even watching – I had closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn't get beaned.  The coach shouted, “Hey, son, keep your eye on the ball,” which I guessed ment don't close my eyes.  He tossed another and it was at least five feet outside – I lounged at it.   I hadn’t learned that one had to wait for a good pitch over the plate.  No matter where the ball went I went after it.  In the dirt, behind me – I tried to hit it.   Finally, after a dozen outrageous swats the coach came off the mound and put his arm around me and said quietly, “Kid ya got to wait for a good one.  You don’t have to swing every time.”  Ten pitches later I had hit one foul ball, a dribbler that went toward first base and then died outside the line.  I was mortified.

Two days later the Daily Republican newspaper published the team picks in the sports section.  I didn't make one of the regular teams which had real uniforms.  I was relegated to a “farm team” which was for the kids who needed to learn the game without pressure or getting hurt. I was doomed to play in the league where you just got a tee shirt for a uniform.  And to make matters worse – and very embarrassing to tell the truth.  I was going to be playing for Chubb’s Insurance, a local sponsor. I “chubby” as my mom reminded me many times.  Why couldn’t have played for Champion’s Hardware or the American Legion sponsor.  I knew I was going to be the topic of much never ending kidding on my school’s playground so I pondered whether I would show up for practice the following week.  The Official Little Leaguer's practiced and played on a real field with a fence and manicured grass.  I would play at a gravel lot near Union Lake.  After much angst, I showed up and continued night after night learning the game from a coach who was a former minor league player.  After a few weeks I started to hit the ball.  I discovered to my surprise that I really had “good eye'' as they say after all.  

We started to play other teams in June and I was required to bring my birth certificate to each game to prove that I was not an adult ringer hired by our sponsor to make Chubb’s a winner.   My mom bought me the big bat allowed because the bats that the team provided were much too small for me.  It was a Stan Musial Louisville slugger.  That too was examined each game – because with it I hit 14 homers in our 15 games.  (Farm league pitching was very hittable once you learned to wait for it) .  By mid-season I had my own first baseman’s mitt.   My mother thought I deserved a gift for doing so well.  I batted 425 that season.  

One father informed me after a game that I went 3 for 4 that I had hit the longest homerun ball he ever saw a kid hit!  I had become a ballplayer.  At the end of the season we played the regular Little League All Star team at their field in South Millville.  The first time I would play before bleachers with routing fans.  It was a thrill when at bat the first time I sailed one out to right center that landed in the factory parking lot across the street.  And my love for the game which was kindled that year and it grew to a flame. I went on to play each summer into my college years.  A left handed “power hitter” I was dubbed in one newspaper article.  Many times, after a game I thought of my grandfather and believed he would certainly have been proud of me.  

Moral: Stuff that looks easy, only becomes easy with hard work and practice andcmost important – Always keep your eye on the ball!