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.