THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER

A TV weather person reported that this was going to be a really big year for Cicadas that have been “sleeping” for 17 years or so and that we would hear their “songs” which is the unique sound they make calling other Cicadas for a date...And then I thought about crickets and the music of my summer nights…

…I hear nothing, not even rain now going to bed in my air conditioned, soundproof apartment high above the street that was once a grove of hundreds of orange trees.  In the summers when I was a kid all the bedroom windows in our cottage were open but the breezes did little to cool me.  However, they did carry the chirp of countless crickets in the pines surrounding our house.  I can still hear their rhythmic love songs in my imagination as I would lie awake trying to figure if there was a pattern to their calls but I never found one.  It would take several years later in high school biology class to learn their purpose in nature.  My home was about 2 miles from our town and half a mile from the state highway.  We had only a few neighbors but plenty of crickets “in the woods” as grandmother Ethel would call our backyard.

And there were other sounds that drifted into the darkness of my room.  Unlike the oaks in our backyard forest the pine trees made a “swishing” sound when a hot wind blew through them.  And when their whispers grew loud, I knew another thunderstorm was on its way.  Pine trees were great to listen to, but not at all good for climbing.  Another sound in my summer concert that I would listen to each night was the horn of a freight train that made a nightly run through our town.  The tracks were miles away, but some night if the wind was just right I  could only hear the clacking of the steel wheels and even the puffing of steam.  And each night as it sounded its melancholy alert I would wonder where it was coming from and going.  Trains always fascinated me.  Making sounds that rode the wind.  Sometimes when the night was very clear and still, I could hear the drone of the glass factory several miles away.  Their behemoth glass machines hummed another tune as they produced a never ending volcano of moltant glass. 

 We learned in school that the famed Carl Sandburg once visited Millville and later wrote about our little factory town...

 

"Down in southern New Jersey, they make glass. 

    By day and by night, the fires burn on in Millville

     and bid the sand let in the light." 

 

And then there were the storms.  I always listened for a far off rumble of thunder. I was afraid of storms.   I think because every time one came by my grandmother made me come in from playing just because the sky was turning purple and black.  I would protest and she always would say, “You don’t want to get struck by lightning, do you?  I knew a boy when I was young who was hit by a bolt because he didn’t come in when his grandmother called him.”  

As the booms became louder, flashes would light my bedroom and each time they got brighter and I got more scared until I put my head under the pillow.  Usually, my mom would quietly come into my room and lower the windows so the rain wouldn’t come in.  I always pretended I was asleep because she got mad when I was awake after my bedtime.  She worried about me got some reason not getting “enough” sleep.  I always wondered enough for what?  And then the rain would pound on our roof fast and hard and then slow.  The rumble got farther away until it was gone.  And soon my sounds of summer faded.  My Summer concert dissolved into the darkness, and I slept until a cawing blackbird woke me to a morning that smelled good…somehow my windows were open. 

As I came in the kitchen mother would always ask me, “Morning…did you get a good sleep?”  And I chirped, “Yes mom… I got a lot.   And she was satisfied once again.

 

 

WEARING OF THE GREEN

There were many mysteries in my life growing up...and why we observed some traditions in my family was one.  For instance, we weren’t Catholic but we had fried salmon cakes every Friday night during lent, “Can't hurt", my grandmother would reply when I asks why? And as she did countless times, she would remind me, "your mother was christened a Catholic" – I wasn't sure what that meant...and it remained a heavenly mystery. Another festive occasion we celebrated every year was Saint Patrick’s Day and we weren’t Irish either.  I pondered this thought about this and looked it up in my encyclopedia because we didn't learn much about feasts for many Saints in the 4^th Methodist Sunday school class.  When I ask mom why we did this – she said, “Because it’s fun!”  That was good enough for me as a nine-year-old.

On Saint Paddy’s Day, my mother picked out a green shirt for me to wear to school and she wore her green sweater to work at the glass plant.  I was sure that she would bring me something good to eat wrapped in a green napkin when she came home because she always saved me her treat from her lunchtime holiday parties.  After school that day the kitchen smelled much different – it always did on holidays.  And this afternoon was no different, there was the unmistakable scent of cabbage in the air as my grandmother presided over her version of an “Irish” meal. (BTW...cabbage and Brussel sprouts were not my favorites - my mom made me eat them.  That night we had bland for dinner.  Corned beef which was “traditional” my mother reported.  And for years I wondered where the corn was?  Boiled potatoes and a great pile of cabbage were piled on my plate.  I always marveled at that combination – as it seemed to taste mostly like hot water.  All in all, when I sat down to this meal, I was very happy that this holiday was only one day each year...and I didn’t ask for my usual seconds that night. 

After clearing the dishes my mom presented me with a semi-squashed green cupcake that she had stowed in her pocketbook at lunchtime. 

 "It's home made from one of the girls", she said, and then with a kiss on my cheek wished me the “luck of the Irish.”  And that summed up our tribute to the patron Saint and famed snake chaser of the Emerald Isle.

 Even now after so many St. Patrick days...I still don’t think eating cabbage is all that lucky. (Note: Decades later by son gave me an Ancestry DNA test kit and to my surprise I found that I am a wee bit of Irish after all! And I decided that from now on I would eat Brussel sprouts and cabbage without compliant.

 

BE MY VALENTINE?

Valentine’s Day is here again.  I think of what that day has meant to me over the years…and then I’m in Mrs. Russell’s third grade classroom once again at the R.M. Bacon School and it’s 1952.

The milestones in a kid’s year are made of holidays – the big one is Christmas followed by Easter and then there are the minor ones – but most still have residual benefits - usually involving candy.  Valentines’ Day for a third grader was a minor one for sure – but one of the few that also brought major worries.  Getting ready for this day devoted to puppy love (the only kind of love known in elementary school) started a few days before the 14th. 

The First Worry - Do I make my valentines and seem like a real cheapskate?  Or do I get some from the 5 &10 store?  I opt for a compromise: I would not use all of my allowance and just get the least expensive ones that came in a booklet.  I just had to cut them out.  Plus, I would ask for some of mom's envelopes to insure the confidentiality of this ritual.

The Second Worry - Who do I give them to?  My mom suggested that I give everyone a card but I rejected that immediately.  (I didn’t consider everyone a “friend”, especially Warren who called me “warthog”( I was a bit chubby but still offended by this).  And so I spent an hour looking at the various cards and thinking about which should go to which friend.  One could not send a mushy heart with an arrow through it to a guy; nor a baseball playing bear my secret crush.  These were heavy decisions for a third grader and a miscue could affect the rest of my school year and beyond.  After much thought I decided that Mary Jane would get a special one as She was the girl  I liked this week.  She was my imaginary "girlfriend” – but of course she didn’t know that she was!  Nor would any girl ever know because of my fear that they would laugh when I revealed my secret.  This changed several grades later.  Ah, Mary Jane…pigtails like thick ropes; thick glasses, probably from eye strain doing countless math problems and klutzy well worn saddle shoes -she was a compulsive recess rope jumper.   Yes, love at any age is blind.  And for me MJ was perfect plus she helped me do my homework.  I finished addressing each work of cartoon art and added what I believed was a very elegant touch – I taped a penny candy heart, with those faint hard to read messages, on each envelope.  Be Mine?...True Love…Yours Truly…Hugs & Kisses.  Not exactly my sentiment for everyone but nobody I knew ever “read” their candy, they just gobbled it.

Valentine's day dawned and I trudged to school with my valentine’s in a bag for safe keeping.  The day dragged by because we had to wait until the last few minutes of class to celebrate.  Mrs. Russell picked one of her “pets” to be the Mailgirl; Brenda always got the good jobs.  She made her way up and down the aisles delivering our tokens of friendship. And our party began.  We each got a pink cupcakes baked by Mrs. Russell.  Before we left for home we opened our "mail".  (Many years and a few loves later - I realize that even in third grade there was a  “pecking order” forming.)  We all looked and counted the number of cards each of us got.  Some got only a few and they would be forever relegated to the sidelines and be the watchers of others rivaling in the joys of life.  The “popular” kids had a pile of valentines on their desks.  They were the few who everyone wanted, no, needed as their friend.  To be those with more cards was what most of us would always yearn for as we grew up.

Valentine’s day in third grade, a taste of what love and life would bring to us all sooner or later  – for some a life of joy and belonging and for others, just lonely nights and some regrets. 

Season's Greetings!

    

Since 2015 I have been writing post for my Blog of "fictionalized memoirs and over the years I posted a dozen Christmas memories.  I grouped them all together and moved them to the top of the list for those of you who haven't read them or those who would like to take another stroll down memory lane with me in the spirit of the holidays.
 

CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY OF LOVE

 A few weeks before every Christmas we made a pilgrimage.  Not to Bethlehem or Mecca but to Gimbels and Lit Brothers.  I think of this every year around the first of December...

    ...It's a very early Saturday the first weekend after Thanksgiving 1953.   Mom, Nanny and I walked to the Public Service Bus garage and waited (what seemed like forever) for the bus to Philly.  I was filled to the brim with excitement.  This was the beginning of the best part of the kid year as heralded by the Millville Daily Republican (which wasn't published on Sunday?) that posted its first little box in the box on the front page = "25 days 'till Christmas”.  I made a mental note to get my Christmas must have list in the works .  But right now I was focused on waiting. 

    Now waiting for a bus is worse than waiting for a tea kettle to boil.  Time slows in a way only a physicist could understand.  But finally the big shiny behemoth roared out of the garage and we were on our way.  The bus driver said, "Vineland Margaret?" and she replied - "No Eddie, all the way to 13th and Market streets." The fare was a buck fifty each – a costly trip in kid finance, but worth it - we were on our way to wonders that predated Disney’s World.  The trek took over an hour as we stopped to pick up new passengers every 14 feet.  The bus filled.  And then we sailed over the big bridge and  were there.  Downtown Market Street and the big stores,  They were all in a row.  Lit Brothers, Gimbals, Woolworth's, W.T. Grants , Sears and Roebucks and the Taj Mahal of Retailers – John Wanamaker's.  And we were going to walk every floor of them all.  This was our day to “window shop” Christmas. 

    However, our first stop was traditionally at Horn & Hardart’s Automat.  I had seen their commercials on TV for months and now I could taste their delicacies in “living color” instead of black and white. Mom let me put 30 cents in a slot this year a little door opened and I grabbed a ham and cheese on white from the little box- this was a fine instant cuisine that predated the fast food burgers to come, but that was years off at this point.  Another quarter in down the row and I got a slice of very spicy apple pie with a slice of yellow cheese on top.  My mother splurged and spent 40 cents for a BLT, her favorite and Nanny had liverwurst (which I  wouldn’t acquire a taste for until I was introduced to it the a Jewish Deli in Atlantic City years later.)

    Now the fun finally began - Next stop Wanamaker and the train in the sky. 

Escalator or elevator?  This was great fun for Millvillians as we basically have a one story town - we rarely rode up anywhere in Millville.  I voted for the escalator because. as we were glided to the next floor, we could see the delights below and the sparkling decorations on each aisle.  As she did every year, Mom cautioned me not to get my foot caught in the the moving steps, which seemed impossible to me - but.  Five floors later we were at the Toy Department,  which occupied an entire floor - this was a kid’s dream come true place.  Riding high above the countless counters of model airplanes, puppets and pop-guns was the Toyland Express Train, aka The Rocket, that circled the perimeter of the floor twice with about 25 kids aboard on each trip.  I always waited in line for the ride first so I could get my bearings - over there was the Hopalong Cassidy stuff in the first aisle, the board games over there.  Bikes below.  I waved to Mom and Nanny.  And then saw “Santa” (his helper of course) seated on a giant golden throne.  (I would later see Gimbel's Santa; like him better, he had a real beard)  After I made the two revolutions on the Polar Express of my day, it was then off to view the treasures close up.  I moved through the rows of glass topped counters like a hunter on a safari.  Up and down each aisle.  I particularly liked the toy gun arsenal and the Gilbert’s Erector Set display of a skyscraper that looked like the Empire State (that no kid would ever be able to duplicate).  Ticker Toys were not a favorite - too babyish. 

    On the way down we would ride the elevator and stop on each floor as the uniformed operator  called out their wares  - When he  said, "3rd floor, ladies underwear.” I always giggled.  This cracked me up every year.  

    Next, out in the windy air to visited every store on the street - Lit Brother's featured a full set of kid armor for $300 dollars.  I knew that would not be on my Christmas list.  I was a realist, even at 10 - Anyhow I probably was too big for it.  Plus, there would never be another kid in my neighborhood that I could to have a  joust. 

    We stopped several times along the busy sidewalks filled with shoppers with armloads of packages way in furniture stores to pretend we were buying Pop an easy chair.  Actually we went in just to sit down and rest our feet for a few minutes.  We moved from easy chair to sofa and tested each for its potential comfort!  Those with foot stools were especially of interest.   Nanny found one recliner with a vibrating seat which we all tried.

    Our last stop always was at Lit Brothers - a small but wonderful department store. Here there were more exotic toys  to see  - in the massive atrium that was patterned after a Roman temple there was a free and famous hourly concert of carols and a giant tree  on a marble pillared balcony high above the crowd decorated, as advertised, with 20 thousand lights that blinked in time with the music.  After every carol in the book was played at ear splitting volume,  there was a big finish  the tree danced to Joy to the World as red and green spotlights made sparkled  And as every year - WOW! was all I could say along with a bunch of oh’s and ah's from the large crowd.  The he lights slowly dimmed to the last chords of Silent Night and the show was over.  Done until a waiting crowd filled the atrium again.

    We were done too - well done.  We had walked all day and Nanny said her "dogs were barking!"  She always had had an old saying that made me laugh.  As the big stores closed, we caught the bus home and I slept most of the way back to Jersey dreaming of my idol Hopalong Cassidy and his double holstered cap guns with simulated pearl handles - the dream ended all too soon when the bus lurched to a stop and we were home again.

    Years later I realized that every time Mom had walked away that day "to look at something" as I gazed at the toys shhe was ordering stuff  "for Santa" and a week later the “big brown” truck would bring many of the things I said, “I really...really like" to Stratton Ave.   

     Our holiday shopping was over and I slept well that night.  These were some of the best days in my life.  But those great monuments on Market street are gone now and replaced by internet orders to an invisible store called Amazon.  They're just memories  - when a magic bus trip took us to a wonderland in the City of Brotherly Love.

THE FOURTH GRADE FROSTY

It was the beginning of December and Miss Ruhlander, my 4th grade teacher, and the meanest at the Bacon school informed our class on the first of December, “By request of our Principal Mrs. McCorristin every class  has been asked to contribute to the PTA’s Annual Christmas Assembly.  The theme this year is Christmas Greeting Cards and the shop class is building  a big frame on stage and a "card"  formed by the students will come to life and “ demonstrate our musical skills or do a seasonal reading. Does anyone have an idea for our contribution? “  No hands went up.  She looked at us sternly and growled,  “No one can play a carol on the piano?”  Still nothing. “Recite a Christmas poem?”  Again nothing.  And then for some internal compulsion I raised my hand and blurted – “I can be Frosty the Snowman!” Miss R was mildly excited as usual.  She didn’t even ask how I could be the famous frozen one.  And I didn’t know either!  What I did know is that I had about a week to figure this one out.

Nanny, Mom and I put our heads together that same night after dinner.  And Nanny volunteered, “I’ll make you a snowman costume!”  And just like that we were on our way.  I had a 45 RPM of Gene Autry's singing of Frosty’s antics and that was my contribution.  My grandmother could sew anything.  A shirt from scratch, no problem. Repair a ripped winter coat – a cinch.  But produce a snowman…I was dubious to say the least.

The days passed.  And Nanny hummed carols in her room working on some white canvas-like fabric she just happened to have.  Her Singer hummed too into the night.  Mom’s job was critical to the entire performance.  The song goes, “When they put a top hat on Frosty…he began to dance around…”  Where in this working man’s town would she get a top hat?  Mom racked her brain.  During her lunch she walked uptown and tried all of the men’s shops.  No dice!  And it was too late and much too expensive to order one from Sears & Roebucks – it would never come in time. Then she had an inspiration – She called the local funeral director.  And he said, “Sure Margaret,  had one from the old days when funerals were more formal.  So why not, anything for education.”  I couldn’t believe Mom made this deal as she always seemed to do.

The night before the show my costume was finished.   I tried on white blossoming pants with a drawstring at the waist to hold them up – we filled the legs with newspaper.  I donned a white jacket that looked  very much like one a chef would wear.  And where did Nanny get those big black buttons down the front that look like coal?  I leaned later - borrowed off her best winter coat.  Mom stuffed my jacket with three pillows.  I looked in the bedroom mirror – good grief I was Frosty! 

The show night arrived.  Mom did my makeup - white face paint left over from Halloween, rosy roughed cheeks and she drew black squares around my eyes and on my nose with an eyebrow pencil.   I was ready to perform.  We drove to the school and I nervously paced backstage waiting my turn.  The sixth grade class sang.  Next a couple fourth graders read Twas the Night Before Christmas.  The lights dimmed and I froze in place behind the big wooden "card" as the curtains rolled back and they played my record.  And timed with  the lyrics, classmate Mary Jane came on stage and placed the top hat on my head.  And of course,  I from  the “card” and started to dance around to the music.  I would have made Martha Graham proud – I improvised a series of pirouettes and finished with a magnificent high jumping twirl.  I had been inspired by the festive season and the clapping from the audience.  I only stopped once when the officer on the record hollered STOP.  The song ended and I froze again back inside the “card”.  The applause was long and loud.  Frosty was a hit.  

And from that day on whenever I see a snowman I remember the night when the magic in a mortician's hat made me a star.

O HOLY NITE

In central Florida where I now live Christmas starts November 1 and there tons of twinkling lights and towns with their own snow making machines that gives one the spirit of the holidays without the frostbite.  And now after concerts, parades and festivals at all the theme parts it's just  a week until the big day…

...And I’m thinking about a much different time... riding with my family looking at the many heavily decorated houses in Millville that were our competition vying for the annual big prize – the Christmas Home Decorating Contest which included a picture on the front page of the Daily Republican and a $25.oo savings bond (which would cover about two days of the added charges on the electric bill)  After years of adding lights and wishing, I was determined that we was going to be “OUR YEAR!”  I had a plan.

We had just moved into our new very modern designed home.  And I had an idea for a decoration so unique it would be a sure  winner.  I found it thumbing through a well-read Popular Mechanics at the barber shop.  Now I just had to convince my Dad that we could construct  this plywood decoration?  And it was going to fit perfectly on our big stone fireplace wall that was the front of our house.

At supper two weeks before the contest I showed the plan  for my 16-foot creation.  My Dad looked at it and was a bit skeptical.  “Hum…that’ll take a lot of plywood,” was his only response.  But he wasn’t noted for being very verbose.  Right away I could see reasoning wasn’t going to work with the realist of the family – so I started to work on my Mom. She could get him to do practically anything.  Two nights later after the dishes were put in our brand-new dish washing machine my Dad said, “Let’s see those plans again.”  And I knew the mom had done her part.  

We started the next evening in the “workshop” which my Dad built before he started building our new house – he was an artist in wood and his shop had every wood working machine a craftsman could want from lathe to router. I say “we worked” on my plan – but like most times he worked, I watched.  First, he laid out a full-scale drawing of the decoration on brown paper.  Transferred it to two sheets of plywood on the shop floor – this very large work of art was taking shape.  Over the next few nights he cut out the intricate shapes.  He was very patient and methodical in his work.  My job was to paint all the surfaces a flat black as each piece was done.  He trusted me to handle that task.  The night of the judging  was looming closer and I was worried we wouldn't make it.  My mom had  filled out the entry blank and mailed it to the newspaper – with the title of our entry – “O Holy Night”.  The die was cast and we had to finish it in before the weekend.  And we made it.   I helped Dad attach our masterpiece to the front of our house on the chimney.  I could not wait until dark so we could see how it looked.  Darkness came early as always on my Mom’s birthday, December 21st and I announced that winning the prize was going to be her present!  With a birthday so close to Christmas mom always got gypped out a present and a party.  We all went to the front of our house.  Dad plugged in the extension cord and our tribute to the season beamed with a yellow glow.  There it was, a 16’ by 4’  backlit silhouette that told the Christmas Eve Story – on the left were the three Magi riding plywood camels toward the palm trees of the City of a Bethlehem which was in the center complete with a radiating star in the imagined sky;  on the right were a couple shepherds staring at an angel hovering above them; running along the bottom of the tableau in 12  inch letters  “O HOLY NITE” – (we didn’t have room for “night”).   The plan seemed to have worked out.  And it was indeed unique – except for the countless other readers of PM that attempted to make it – but in Millville it would literally stand alone.  I knew it would win us the coveted prize – a $25 dollar savings bond and a year of bragging rights at school.  My mother, with tears in her eyes, whispered, “It’s just beautiful…the best birthday present ever…just beautiful…”  My Dad said, “I wish it was brighter.”  He was always the perfectionist.  I said nothing but I was very proud of the way it turned out.

That weekend when Dad turned on the rest of our electric testament to the season – my city of Bethlehem just looked like a large black stripe on our fireplace wall. We hadn’t factored into the design the ambient light from about hundred red and green lights under the eves and outlining our entire house.   Dad added more lights for two nights straight - but the effect or lack of effect remained the same.  I was crushed.  My creation turned out to be just an ugly black box.  Needless to say,  we didn’t win; we didn’t even get on the  honorable mentions.  

The next Christmas Dad tried the shadow box once again in a different spot but with the same result and then it was relegated to the scrap woodpile.  Year after year we added  lights, a plastic Santa and Sleigh, candelabras in each window - but  we never did when the contest.  But I did learn an important lesson.  The best laid plans may look great on paper – but sometimes in the bright light of reality - they just don't work.