SUMMERTIME AT LAST

     

 My senior year rolled by fast and a few memorable moments were made before everything would change. A day after graduation, most of the college-bound went to work. Bub worked days...I worked shift work, but every three weeks, we got to "go to the shore," as they say in South Jersey. Bub and I would drive the 28 miles to Ocean City after work as fast as we could (hopefully without getting a ticket). 
    And we walked the boards from First Street to 34th Street and back again – sometimes three or four times in an evening.  Why?  Looking for girls, of course, but neither of us ever dared to start a conversation with even one in the three summers we spent fooling ourselves.  The ritual was the same each time, and we would do it at least once during the week and sometimes twice on the weekends.     On our first round, we would have cheeseburgers at Bob's Grill at the turnaround of our stroll.  A place noted for its hot waitresses and cool food – we knew many of them.  They came for the summer and shared "dorm-style" rooms with four or five beds and a bath down the hall.   Bub and I both had unfulfilled fantasies about young ladies in uniform.  On the way back, a vanilla snow cone was next for me and a Coke for Bub – strange kid that I was, I really didn't like the taste of Coca Cola. 
    And so back to our starting point to do it all over again. Bub, of course, always proudly wore his new red and blue University of Penn sweatshirt.  And I, however, wore an emerald green one with only the word Dartmouth emblazoned across my chest - an Ivy League institution that prided itself in being slightly understated in all its endeavors. I obtained this deceptive garment from a friend whose brother was about to graduate.  (Glassboro State Teachers' College would be my Alma Mater for four years, but...However, I had the idea that being an Ivy Leaguer would enhance my attempts to attract females more than the brown and gold of the local teacher's college. I chose that Ivy League school because few would know much about the faraway institution; thus, discovering my ruse was a remote possibility. (The following summer, I proudly wore a GSC shirt - a semester of British Lit. had increased my confidence. I didn't need a logo to impress; I could sound smart. As Geoffrey Chaucer said, "Familiarity breeds contempt!" I agreed, but no longer cared.)  
On our next 30+ block brisk jaunt, we would partake of a slice of Mack's pizza – a great thin-crust delicacy not to be bested until I moved to Trenton, the home of the original tomato pie. After devouring a whole pie between us, we continued on the prowl, feeling full and satisfied.  We saw a small crowd gathered at the 9th Street pavilion, a covered seating area located on the ocean side of the boardwalk.  It was the meeting place for the young and a resting place for the senior set.  Tonight, someone was singing with a guitar for a bunch of folksong devotees.  As I got closer, I recognized my friend. I knew her from some community theater shows I auditioned for, and she was a very talented performer and never missed a chance to perform.  She nodded when she saw me, and as she finished her rendition of Blowin' in the Wind, she announced to the audience, "I want to introduce one of the most talented and funniest guys I know to our little hootenanny - Cal, please sing us a song?"   Yikes, I was now in a tight spot.  If I said "no," I would be uncool, and if I sang a dud, I would be even more uncool.  What to sing?  My mind raced, and then I said to myself, "What the hell, I'll do one I made up and see if it goes?   "Hey Mary, do you know the tune of The Streets of Laredo"? She plucked some cords, and I began to sing, to Bub's chagrin…as he disappeared into the growing crowd.
"As I walked on the boards of Ocean City
As I walked out on the boardwalk tonight
I spied a young man wearing a sweatshirt
Decked in a sweatshirt from a college, alright.
I said I can see by your shirt that you're in college,
He said, I too can see you're a college, that's true 
So I say to you all - if you want to be in college...
Get yourself a sweatshirt and be in college too."

This got a big laugh and a smattering of applause. (I think the lyrics were very accurate for more than one person in the audience) I waved a thank you to Mary, and she started singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"  I found Bub, and we quietly sauntered off in search of some fresh kettle corn for the drive home.

AULD LANG SYNE

   

 The New Year has come again, much too fast, I fear…And I rifle through my mental card file of holidays past, then find one from the 1950s, back to our tiny, 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, me, and the TV.  
In 1953, we had a new giant box of a TV that my mom bought.  As a 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 up to a new device on our rooftop – a TennaRotor. This small motor turned the antenna for optimal reception.  The 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 four channels we could receive in those days, without the 4,999 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 the 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, which is now 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 in 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 on them with 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, which she had 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 Year's 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 huge slice every year until my mother stopped baking and bringing a large cake to me.  It was a great, dark brown, spicy concoction - one that only Mom seemed to make correctly. Many others tried but failed to make one as good as she did.  Mom credited her success to the white, well-used, and chipped enameled pan that had been handed down to her from her grandmother.  
    The clock was ticking down as Guy's guys played his famous rendition of Pennsylvania Polka – Nanny. I sang along, and we were both in good voice tonight.  During a commercial, I rushed to find the hats and horns I had saved for years, only to discover them in the far reaches of my bedroom closet/toy depository/hiding spot.  The 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 fully 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 a foot baton, the orchestra struck up their trademark low and moaning sound playing the yearly song that nobody really knows 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.  The 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 81; 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 tiny 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

      Every Christmas, I remember my own, albeit somewhat insignificant, Christmas Miracle – but for me, it was extraordinary.  I usually see myself standing in my dorm room getting dressed.  The wind was brisk that night, and I was ready very early for the annual college Snow Ball – our Christmas Dance (now called the Winter Pre-Break Semi-Holiday activity for all persuasions)  at Glassboro State College (now named Rowan U). This was my first big dance, and I was "dressed to the nines," whatever that means – I heard it in a Fred Astaire movie.  And my date and I had coordinated our outfits! 
I was the only person in my dorm who didn't have to rent a tux jacket.  As a former kid magician, I had several formal outfits, and tonight I chose a dark maroon tux jacket with a matching cummerbund.  And, keeping with the season, I buttoned my formal shirt with genuine ruby studs and matching cufflinks borrowed from my Dad. Nancy, my date, was going to match me in a maroon velvet dress she bought especially for the occasion.   I was very excited getting ready to go.
    The dance was in our cavernous college gym, and all of our dances were seasoned with the familiar aroma of sweat socks mixed with industrial-grade floor wax.  The Social Activities Committee had hired a band that motored down in three stretch limos from New York City.  When they first started playing it, it woke us up with some Rock Around the Christmas Tree…and so we did, sort of; I was an embarrassingly bad dancer.  After the first long set, the band took a break, and we had a special entertainment provided by the Student Affairs office -  a comedian who we had never heard of - Richard Pryor?  (There was no Googling on phones in the '60s, so we had no idea what to expect)
    He bounded onto the stage and began his shocking material about growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn. After several minutes of the rapid monologue about drunk uncles, homeless people, and drug dealers, which got only a few nervous laughs.  Mr. Pryor stopped mid-sentence, took a check from his pocket, tore it into pieces, and said, "Folks, thanks, but no thanks - you guys have no idea what I am talking about – have a great holiday," and walked off the small stage.  This produced a full 30 seconds of stunned silence.  Nancy and I went to the lobby for a Coke and then returned to the festive music makers, where we danced the night away to romantic Christmas songs. (Years later, I would see Pryor on network TV and realize how insulated we all were from the real world at that time in our lives, specifically in South Jersey.) When I returned to the dorm after some fierce necking on the walk back, to my chagrin, I discovered that I had lost one of the genuine ruby studs which I had promised to guard with my life, as the set was a treasured memento of his year as a Masonic Worshipful Master.  
    Early the next morning, I called Nancy at her dorm, and we met for breakfast at the cafeteria. Then, we retraced our steps from the previous evening; however, I thought that finding a tiny ruby under a thin layer of fresh snow was almost impossible.  But Nancy urged me to at least give it a try.  First, we searched the dance floor of the gym.  We asked a building custodian if he had found anything, but he said only a pair of reading glasses, a white glove, and two ladies' compacts.  I was distraught - this mini-disaster was sucking the joy out of my first romantic weekend of college life. Nancy, an optimist majoring in elementary education, consoled me, "Maybe it will turn up…maybe someone found it and will turn it in on Monday…maybe?"  I was sure this wouldn't be the case and was not consoled by it.  We left the building, and I started to think about how I would tell my Dad the lousy news.  As we walked to the parking lot on a muddy path that hundreds had trodden the night before, with our heads bowed in thought, I caught a faint red glint in the mud, yards from the doorway.  "Nance, look!"  Embedded in the wet dirt, half-buried was Dad's ruby catching the sunlight – it had been trampled on by several hundred guys and girls…but there it was, found at last...I never told Dad or Mom about my Christmas Miracle until years later, when he gave me the ruby studs, hoping that I would pass them on to my son someday...which I did.

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 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.

  

PAPER CHAINS OF TIME

In my kid-years the middle of December had the longest days of all rather than the shortest because it seems Christmas would never arrive.  The hours dragged by in fourth grade for me.  I could hear the big round clock over the classroom door click each time a second passed and I tried to figure just how many seconds it was until the big day, but I gave up.  Math was not my strongest skill.  The numbers are too big.  (Editor’s note:  This was before calculators and laptops in every kid's backpack because they are a necessity.)  

At this time of the weary year I bet teachers still imagined all kids really like to make red and green paper chains stuck together with paste from the giant jar of white stuff only found in elementary schools. (This obsequious school tool has been tasted at least once by every student in the world  to find out if it as edible as it looks – it’s not!)  Students, however, still do prefer making paper chains better than figuring long division problems.

Miss R. announced as class begun two weeks before the big day that we were going to make decorations for the Bacon School Christmas tree that stood in the gleaming marble foyer across from the big double doors that we were never allowed to use unless our parents had come to chat with the principal about our misdemeanors, endeavors or lack of such.   So we began an annual task that I hated almost as much as waiting for Christmas - working on the paper chain gang.  As we started the paste’s medicinal-like smell permeated the room.  We all worked as slow as we could.  If we played this task right our chain building would take us right up to our lunch period and the aroma of peanut butter and jelly would replace the paste fumes if we were sure to wash our hands as we were reminded to do constantly by Miss R.

After producing at least 4 miles of paper chains and then having our half hour of eating freedom we returned to Room 103 and to our next assignment - making construction paper snowflakes.  Miss R reviewed our crafting instructions, “First select a color of your choice from the construction paper bin.  Carefully cut it into four small squares, minding your fingers.  Fold it once in half…then again…cut a ‘creative’ design…you then unfold it and you will discover a wonderfully unique snowflake… blah blah blah.”  (Now each of us have been doing this since we were 3 but we listened and asked questions because this “lesson” also took up more arithmetic time hoping this work might take the rest of the day  and  one day closer to the greatest day of the year.

Clip, clip, clip…        

The room sounded like the final exam at barber school.  It replaced the tick of the big clock for me.  And then wa-la we had jointly produced 558 colored snowflakes that strangely all looked somewhat alike and none were white like they are supposed to be?  Our room had run out of white construction paper in September.  We proud artisans marched out to the hallowed marble hall and reverently adorned the boughs of a real, very fragrant tree…that was already dropping its needles on the pristine granite…

...and like a paper chain of time, link by link, we were one day closer to Christmas vacation.

THE Christmas Concert

I watched this year's version of Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and thought of my own concert years ago...

...I was in the Bacon School band in 4th grade and worked my way up in a couple of years from third trumpet all the way to second trumpet (I only practiced when threatened with bodily harm) until I graduated from 8th.  I vainly attempted to play the trumpet for years until I went out for football in high school and never touched my horn again  – a very expensive and loud instrument bit the dust at a yard sale years later.

Our “ band” was under the direction of Mrs. N. (I rarely use full names to protect the innocent and avoid lawsuits for slander).  She seemed a very nervous, very thin, very far sighted music teacher - who always looked worried.  I remember two things about our band.  One – we never quite got in tune for the performance.  And most of all,  I will never forget our Annual Christmas Cantata  in which we played every Christmas song ever penned.  This show went on longer than a history lesson on the day before a school vacation.  During the performance chorus members were known to pass out from lack of food.  My lip always became numb after the twelfth chorus of My Three Kings, played as a round - and we had just begun our musical marathon.  We yet to play Gregorian chants, Medieval Welch carols, Bing Crosby's greatest holiday hits.  Some with Latin names like Adeste Fideles ( I always called it “at guest day feed-all-us”)  I blared my harmony out as the audience yawned in time with the tunes.  

My mother and grandmother were seasoned school program goers – they beamed as I blasted my second trumpet trills, frills and flourishes during the Traditional Olde English Standards of the 18th Century segment of the concert.  I had a two note solo.  The chorus sang in Latin and English at the same time on these ancient rapsodies in two part harmony,  Next, Miss N. thumbed her pile of music sheets,  and then tapped the music stand with her two foot baton.  We were at the ready for a rare Armenian Folk Song.  I operated my long overdue, spit valve which made a loud blatting sound and missed the downbeat.  This piece featured a triangle solo by my cousin Warren, a virtuoso on this age-old percussion instrument.

And then it was finally over.  All 800 carols had been rendered for another year.  The audience stood and wildly cheered.  Madame N. made her well rehearsed bow at least five times as the band prayed she would not offer an encore. For many in the audience it was finally a chance to wake up their legs that had gone numb.

Lastly, Mrs. McC. , who must have been 90 years old principal, then thanked everyone in the Millville White Pages and closed by bidding all a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”  (Editor's note:  In the 50’s educators were actually permitted to utter the word Christmas on school property instead of the current generic “Winter Holiday”)  The best part of the evening for me was an ice-cream soda on the way home at George and Mary’s Luncheonette. 

That night, in bed, as I held a washcloth with an ice on my throbbing lip,  (Editor’s note: Technically the lip for a trumpet player is called an embouchure -  I would learn this years doing a crossword puzzle), I had a very anxious moment because I remembered that our Annual Spring Concert was just a few months away!