A "MARY" THANKSGIVING

It's Thanksgiving time again, as the days grow shorter… my heater came on today.  I wondered if there would be frost tonight.  And I thought about past holidays, and one special celebration with Aunt Mary and her son, Louis, came to mind.  I can see their long driveway that led to a little white house in Vineland, and Aunt Mary was small too – she was my grandfather's younger sister, and as round as she was tall.  She wasn't more than 4 feet 6 inches.  And even though she was born in Brooklyn 65 years ago,  she still spoke with a strong Italian accent.  (Her father, Sebastian, had emigrated from Rome to Brooklyn and then moved to Vineland to work on a truck farm. Work he did in the old country.  He joined many other immigrants who spoke his language and understood his ways.) One of my family traditions was to spend most holidays with my mother's side of the family,  Aunt Mary and her bachelor son Louis.  And I suspected that the main reason was that she was a great cook.  "I make everything like in the old country," she told me many times.      But I am ahead of myself.  I had a tradition too.  The day before each feast, I would take the bus 10 miles to "assist" Aunt Mary in making our special dinner.  Homemade ravioli was her specialty, and it was on every menu.  I asked her once why we always made only one hundred and ten pieces, and she replied that she rolled out the dough to fit on her porcelain-topped table, and when cut, it made that many pieces each time.  Her kitchen was small and always had a trace of garlic in the air.  The preparations for her dinner had started the day before I arrived.   Her incredible "gravy" had been quietly simmering on the stove for about 24 hours - the fresh plum tomatoes cooked down and marinating with pieces of sausage, pork, and her "secret" spices.  Aunt Mary had cousins in Switzerland and Italy who mailed magic seasonings several times a year.   This wasn't just cooking; it was a family ritual handed down through many generations.      I rolled up my sleeves and we began.  Aunt Mary dusted the table with flour and then kneaded a dough ball the size of a basketball with her hands in an ancient ceramic bowl.  She plopped it on the table with a loud thud – and the job I waited a long time for came next.  Using a large rolling pin, I spread the dough out to the corners of the table into a thin, four-foot square.  I would take great pains as Aunt Mary hovered behind me, saying, "Calvin, make it thin, make it very thin."  (Actually, she said, tin rather than thin - her English faltered sometimes).  When I finished, my arms ached - but this was a welcome price to pay.   Next, Aunt Mary spread the filling on half of the dough —a combination of spinach, hand-ground beef, and pork mixed with the ragout cheese, as she called it.  Next, she carefully folded the dough over.  This took a very experienced hand.  My "second best" job was next.  I got to make the little pockets with a serrated wheel on a handle that turned the table of dough into ravioli.  This whole process took most of our afternoon.  After we finished,  Aunt Mary made me a cup of tea and gave me some cookies before I caught the 5:05 for home.   I could not wait until tomorrow when I would brag about how "I made the pasta."  All 110 pieces.  I did the math on the bus trip and figured that each of us got about 20 each, and we usually didn't have any leftovers.   Plus, there would be the turkey turned to a golden brown in her ancient oven.  And my favorite dessert ever – "orange ice-a-box cake". This was a concoction that I had only at Aunt Mary's and never again.  I think she invented it.  Its basic ingredient was "ladyfinger cookies, store-bought," as she would say.  Cookies with a tangy orange custard.  – No matter how full I was, there was always room for two bowls of it.

Thanksgiving Day came, and I watched the Macy's famous parade in living black and white on our new and bigger 12" Admiral.  I had never been to a Macy's store, but I imagined it had to be a great place if it could have a two-hour parade on TV.  I dressed in my "Sunday School outfit" (my mother insisted that I "dress up" on holidays).  And we made our pilgrimage to Vineland and our afternoon celebration.  We filled the small living room (which doubles as a dining room) with its large, round table. Louis brought up folding chairs from the basement and insisted that he and Aunt Mary use them – "You are guests", he always said.  Dinner was laid on the table immediately.  I then had to recite the blessing (which I always hated to do, but…). After our moment of thanks, the passing of giant bowls and the tasting began.  My mother would say, as she did each year, that the pasta was the "best" she had ever had – "Aunt Mary, you outdid yourself this year."   Aunt Mary always waved off this compliment and worried out loud, "I hope the turkey is not too dry". There was very little chatter as we dug into the feast.  Louis never said anything unless asked a question.  He was a middle-aged, lifelong bachelor who had spent his adult life, after returning from World War II, caring for his widowed mother – he was a good Italian son and a quiet man.  In all my years, I had never heard him say more than 10 to 15 words per holiday.  Mostly "how are you "goodbye," and "happy Thanksgiving".  He had a look of sadness – the look of a man who had resigned himself to his duty but wishing there had been more. But Aunt Mary depended on him.   I would smile when she would instruct him to "make the light once" or "Louis, I feel a draft" which was her cue for him to turn up the thermostat.  Aunt Mary lived into her late 80s in that small cottage and soon stopped asking Louis for things.  Our holidays with her stopped.  She spent the last five years of her Life sitting quietly with her memories in a straight-backed chair with a knitted shawl on her shoulders.     After dinner, I was always so full I could hardly move.  As I did every visit, I asked cousin Louis if I could see some more of his Life Magazines. Louis had collected every issue of Life since its inception.  He had them in neat, year-by-year stacks in the basement on shelves with curtains to keep out the dust.  Louis brought up a stack of magazines.  Somehow, he seemed to remember which editions I had seen on my last visit.  I flipped page after page of this weekly history of Life in pictures until it was time to go home, fascinated by their content.  As we started to say our goodbyes, Louis neatly gathered up the magazines as if they were first editions of great literary works and returned them to their resting place.  (When Aunt Mary passed away, he moved to a rented room and deposited his entire collection in a dumpster – I was devastated.  When I scolded him about this significant loss, he just smiled and in his quiet way said, "Oh well…it was time…")     Aunt Mary's ravioli with fragile dough – turkey, orange icebox cake – and the history of the world in pictures, that was my Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter for many years.  And the menu never changed.  Many holidays have rolled by since we stopped going to Vineland.  Aunt Mary and Louis are gone now.  And I have spent many holidays in fine and famous eateries – and yet I still yearn for one more homemade ravioli dinner that I helped make. Sharing an old country meal with those who are gone...gone like the people on the pages of Louis's treasured magazines.

The Halloween Double Feature

    

    It's that time of year for ghosts, goblins, and Reese's Cups (my favorite, which my granddaughters each save for me from their stash!).  And every Halloween since the 50's, I remember one afternoon at the Levoy Theater…when I became a monster and terrorized over 1000 kids… 

…There was going to be a great kids' event.  A Halloween live magic show at the movies – an afternoon I had been waiting for since it was first advertised on a big poster in the lobby during the summer.  "Coming in October to Your Theatre…Dr. Silkini's Traveling Magic Show - Live on Stage…and a Double Creepy Feature…Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman and Meet the Mummy…PLUS AN APPEARANCE OF THE REAL FRANKENSTEIN AND DRACULA LIVE ON STAGE. 

"All this and more for one low ticket price…"  The words were blood red across a background of bats surrounding a photo of the great grand magusi himself – Dr. Silkini with a fireball shooting from his wand!  This was going to be the great Halloween – I just knew it and started to cross off the days on the Abbott's Fine Bakery calendar hanging in our kitchen. 

    Finally, the Saturday before Halloween came, and I couldn't wait to get to my favorite seat at the movie – I got there as the doors opened.  But as I walked through the lobby, a young lady stopped me and said, "Young man, you look like somebody who might enjoy having extra fun today. How would you like to be in our show?  I am Dr. Silkini's assistant, Miss Carol, and I think you would be a perfect fit for our show!"  How did she know I was a Charter Member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and had been playing the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Dinner circuit since I was a kid?  (I started to do magic shows when I was 9, four years ago) This was an incredible piece of good luck.  I was going backstage with a "real" magician and, even better, a part of his big act.   Miss Carol instructed me to come backstage through the exit door to the right of the stage just before the first movie ended so I could get my script and makeup.  Makeup! I was going to get makeup – this was real showbiz.  As Bud Abbot and sidekick Lou Costello ran from a monster for the last time,  I made my way backstage. I was in the dim light behind the translucent, flickering screen.

    This was a real backstage with dressing rooms, ancient theater posters on the walls, ropes and pulleys – I had no idea that our local movie house was a real theater - a stop on the traveling vaudeville circuit.  I was very excited until I saw a half dozen of my friends sitting on folding chairs – I wasn't going to be the only star of this show.  A man, dressed in sneakers and a sweatshirt, got our attention (this was the famous Dr. Silkini, but he didn't look much like a wizard or a doctor; he looked like just a person).  He asked us to form a line, and as he walked by each of us, he quickly made assignments for the show. "You two will be floating hands.  You will be Dracula; all you have to do is lie in that coffin and sit up when I  knock on the lid.  You other two will work the flying bats; Miss Carol will show you how.  And you (me), big guy, will be my Frankenstein.  When I cue ya, just walk out on stage (he demonstrated the stiff Karloff monster walk), make some loud monster noises, and when the lights go out, jump off the stage and run, I repeat run as fast as you can, up the center aisle, and wait for us in the lobby to get you back here.  Thanks, guys, for your great help, and all of you will get an autographed picture of me as a souvenir of our big Halloween show."  And that was it. 

    Miss Carol, who came from the one dressing room, now in her very brief red sequined outfit, helped me get into my costume, consisting of a giant padded black canvas coat and a pair of shoes with six-inch blocks of wood attached to the soles.  She advised me to practice walking because walking in them was not easy.  She handed me a well-used Frankenstein rubber mask that covered my whole head.  I pulled it on.  It smelled like Swiss cheese, and I practiced walking and trying to see where I was going while the "hands" and the "bat" guys got dressed in long black robes with hoods.  Miss Carol sprayed their hands with white fluorescent paint – and they glowed magically as they waited in the dark wings of the stage.  She raced through our last instructions - "Listen to Doc...just follow what he says - hands just walk around the stage and wave at the audience.  Bat guys' fly' the bats at the edge of the stage out over the audience when he tells you - like casting with a fishing pole.  Drac, I'll push you out to the center, and don't forget to sit up.  Frank, you will come on when the Doc cues you".

    The "live" show started with the Doc doing a few traditional magic tricks –  Chinese linking rings, an ancient and weary rabbit appeared and disappeared, and then he did his "big finish" - he cut Miss Carol in half and restored her, no worse for wear!  She pranced into the wings. (And from my point of view, I now knew how this trick was done, but I would never tell).  The stage darkened. And black lights above the stage were turned on -  (Note: for the un-magician, these lights made things glow in the dark.)  

    Next, eerie music filled the theater from a record player in front of an ancient PA mike.  Dr. Silkinni, with a flashlight under his chin, spun a scary tale of Halloween, and the audience started to shriek as the stage went totally black.  Miss Carol pushed the six hands out on the stage, and the audience screamed as they saw them floating in mid-air.  Next, as the Doc continued his tale, the evil glowing bats flew to even louder shrieks.  Dracula was summoned and sat up on cue. The audience of hundreds of kids was now hysterical – and I was too...I was next.  Doc's story then introduced the greatest monster of them all – me.   Miss Carol gave me a not-so-gentle push out on the stage – I clomped to the center, doing my best monster impersonation (Boris would have been proud) - the music was deafening.  Thunder roared and strobes flashed as Doc yelled, "JUMP"!  

    I jumped off the stage into the black void. My giant shoes crunch through the aged floorboards in what used to house an orchestra pit.  I was stuck.  Finally, I pried both feet out and tried to find the center aisle - but I was immediately pounced on by all the kids in the first row.  I was pummeled with their tiny fists, showered in popcorn, beaned with Good and Plenty's – I feared that I would actually become one of the living dead – or worse.  I couldn't see anything in the sweaty mask. I desperately tried to find a way to escape.  I now realize why the Doc had repeated during our "rehearsal' that I should "immediately run" up the closest aisle. 

    Then a firm hand grabbed my arm – Miss Carol pulled me up the aisle as the house lights came on to a crescendo of rolling applause and hoots, then slowly dimmed. The next movie, Frankenstein and the Three Stooges, began.  And I had been saved from the kid monster hunters.  Safely backstage, Miss Carol said, "Great job, Frankenstein. Want to do it for our evening show tonight?  You can come to the movie for free."  How could I say no?  

    After my evening performance, my showbiz career was over for a while. Still, I was bitten that day, not by a horror show vampire, but by a showbiz bug whose effects have been with me ever since.

A TREAT OR A TRICK

     

Looking back, I have decided that my Mother was amazing!  She worked at a glass factory 8 hours a day and still came home to spend time with me before bedtime, read a story, and play Parcheesi (a game I insisted on playing).  But one Halloween, she outdid herself for sure.  I was 9 or 10, and Halloween was still a significant event in my kid year.  I looked forward to it almost as much as Easter, but not nearly as much as Christmas.  So, one night in early October at play time, Mom asked, “How would you like to have a Halloween party?”  “Why sure!” I replied, but I was not really sure what a Halloween party would be like, and I guess I looked puzzled because she added, “Just leave it to me…I will call the moms of your Cub Scout Den, and you invite your cousins, and don’t forget Bruce.”  I was surrounded by “cousins” one or twice removed.  My grandfather had built our small cottage between the homes of his two brothers, and they both had a bunch of kids. One cousin, Bruce, was my nemesis – the famous neighborhood bully. He was noted for his violent reprisals whenever anyone beat him at marbles, basketball foul shots, or even rummy on a rainy day.   I wondered why my Mother had decided that I had to invite Bruce.  Little did I realize she was up to producing a Halloween trick!  So, after throwing a marble game, I asked him the next day, and losing one of my favorite Tommy Trollers to avoid a black eye or worse.  To my surprise, he said he would come!   Yikes, he never went to parties; of course, he was never invited to any, primarily out of fear that he would do something bad to someone before the cake was served.  And so, a couple of nights before Halloween, ten boys all in costume, except Bruce, were assembled in our living room.  My Mother had been working on the event for days.  And it was a big secret as she worked in the laundry room.  It was off limits for me, and this was driving me crazy.  The festivities began with my grandmother turning out all the lights and turning on our record player – eerie organ music filled the darkness.  Mom entered carrying a candle – and she was dressed like a witch!  Tall, peaked hat, black cape (I later learned my grandmother made the costume), and she was riding an old broom.  We all shrieked, except Bruce, who was too cool to be impressed.  We sat mesmerized as this green-faced old witch cackled and conjured up the fun. First, she “read” our palms and told our fortunes – and she was hilarious.  I had no idea where she got the script for this.  (Later, she told me she had chatted with all the moms for some funny stuff to tell)  Next, Nanny served us cider and homemade cinnamon donuts.  We ate and played games for a couple of hours, pin the tail on the ghost, guess the monster charades, and then the big moment arrived.  Mom produced a long tube from a roll of paper towels that she had painted black and orange. – After showing it, she said in her best witch impersonation that it was a “magic spyglass” and if someone peered into it, they would see a real ghost.  But it only works once a night, so who would like to be brave enough to take a look?  Bruce immediately grabbed it and declared, “I’m the oldest, and the rest of you are too afraid.” This was the first sound he had said all night. Most of the time, he had been scowling, letting everyone know that he was much too cool to enjoy the kid games.  Mom explained that he had to look deep into the darkness of the device.  He put it to his eye and growled that he saw nothing.  Mom said maybe he should turn it a bit.  He did.  Not a thing! She suggested he try the other eye – again, NOTHING he yelled.  He took the tube away and snarled, “This lousy thing ain’t working”!  The room went wild with laughter!  The tube left big black circles around each eye.  Mom had added her mascara to the end of the tube.   For us ten-year-olds, this was the greatest practical joke ever, played on the one person that surely deserved it – we hooted for a long time, not caring that we might later feel the wrath of Bruce the next day after school.  For once, Bruce got the black eyes, not one of us.  Bruce had no idea what was going on until Mom gave him a mirror and he took a look.  He was mortified.  She gave him a wet paper towel to wash off his “black eyes”!  He didn’t say another word and just grabbed another donut.  And we all knew he knew he was undone by a mom no less, and not by a big kid’s punch.  The next day, I saw him on the school playground and anticipated a bad end to my mom’s practical joke, but he just looked at me with a smirky smile rather than his usual glare. 

    The best Halloween Ever was over for another year, and from that day forward, Bruce the Bully left all of us alone.  

TRICK OR TREAT?

  

  The kitchen calendar flipped to October 1, 1952, and I started to think of Halloween and my annual monumental decision - What would I be this year?  But that day, fate stepped in when I saw a full-face rubber mask of Frankenstein in the window of W.T. Grants.  It was $7.50 - yikes, a fortune in kid money, but I was sure I could talk my grandfather into a "loan".  My most excellent costume of all time was in the works.

    My grandmother was a great seamstress, and she turned an old black remnant into a monster's jacket. Next, a feat of genius, she fit the jacket perfectly, and it went over a large cardboard box, which gave me giant shoulders. My pop gave up his favorite pair of black work pants, and he nailed a couple of slabs of pine to the soles of a pair of worn-out work boots. I clomped around the house all week. Boris Karloff would have been proud.

    The wait slowed the clock as usual. The days ticked off. Now in South Millville, treating or Treating took more than one day to ensure we got to everyone.   We went out in a gang two nights before and then the big one, Halloween, filling a pillow case each night - with no worries about straight pins in our Baby Ruth bars.  As a warm-up, we also appeared at the Bacon School PTA Halloween party, marched around the gym, and ate hard gingerbread cookies from the cafeteria with a cider chaser.

    Back to mischief night - we tossed toilet paper over Aunt Kathleen's trees and ran.  We threw a couple of eggs at each other and would have turned over an outhouse if we could find one, but they had disappeared when we got city water.   We did not think of burning a neighbor's car, stealing a TV from a department store window, or destroying anything - we just had fun and always hoped we would meet the Jersey Devil at the second street hollow - just once.  But we never saw him/her/it.

    Each night, I donned the mask and stumbled out into the dark.  Actually seeing in the mask was not an option.  All around us were the hoots and shrieks of ghouls and a couple of gals dressed as Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring – a popular character on The Howdy Doody show and one of the best-selling store-bought costumes at our Woolworth's 5 & 10 @ $2.89.  I made the rounds from third to second and back with my friends.  Warren was choking in the skeleton costume he had outgrown about two years ago.  Danny was the Lone Ranger with a mask and a cap gun ready.  He fired off a few cap rounds at every door as a greeting.  And Sylvia was a "something" – none of us could figure just what.  But it was a raggedy, mismatched outfit held together with safety pins that decades later a famed pop star would wear the same on TV and change the world of fashion for teenage girls.  

    Inside my prized rubber mask, I was drenched as my breath condensed in the cool fall air into a moist and steamy mixture that got into my eyes.  This was a small price for what I was sure would be the biggest candy haul ever.  I thought that nobody would ever guess who this giant monster was.  I had practiced my monster voice all week, trying to sound like Mr. Boris K., but I was immediately recognized at each door.  "Great, get up there, Calvin," my uncle Harold said.   My bag of treats grew heavy, and I  dragged it behind me.  And then it was over, as all holidays must - too soon..

I staggered home and immediately got out of my wet mask to dump my haul on the living room floor and counted my stash.  32 candy bars, 7 homemade chocolate chip cookies, 46 cents in change, a rusty token from the NYC subway, and a pencil which said, Prince's Lumber Company.  I had bagged enough sugar to make a dentist drool.  Of all the treats, I preferred the regular-size Reese's Cups over the others.  They had a special flavor on the candy connoisseur's palate for at least two bites. On the other hand, I never ate the Mary Janes, those hard chomping waxy morsels that my mom tossed after they hung around for a few months.

    I put my dripping mask away, and it would stay on that shelf in my room until a yard sale 10 years hence.   But it remains the best mask I ever had for Halloween.

Memories of Growing Up

My Millville Memories? 

    They come, they go.  They appear from a word.  A song on the radio or watching an old movie. I often forget what I had for dinner but I can remember a moment, a face (not necessarily a name) from 50 years ago. I produce this “semi-fictionalized-memoir” to save these memories before they blow away.  I must admit that some are partly fiction because I made a few memories turn out the way I wished they had. My hope - perhaps others who read them will relive their wonderful, bright, dark, sad, and happy days of growing up.  These memories remind me of how blessed I was to lived part of my journey in the time and place where I grew up.  A small town. They are an unchronological compilation of yesterday's moments that made me who I am today.  I sincerely believe that my life has been a wonderful life filled with great times and some harrowing events - I seem to be “incident prone” !

    As for my profile of my early life:  I hated submarine sandwiches, too soggy.  I loved baseball.  Played football but thought it was stupid. Broke my leg when I was three and it still hurts when it rains.  I wore cordovan penny loafers with shinny new pennies in them with Lincoln's face up.  Sometimes I went to church.  I  smoked my granddad’s pipe when I was ten and didn’t get sick.  I hated Latin class.  I hated diagramming sentences more than I hated Latin.  Now that you know me a bit I invite you to keep reading my Blog as I journey through Millville Memories - I will post as one comes to me.

THE FALL

Reading a Facebook post a friend remarked about how they loved the fall...
and I thought for some, but not for all...

Fall 

I always hated fall

But I loved the leaves

Then I remembered they call  

For the death of summer.

I always hated fall

The first day of school

Excited, sweaty fear for all

And then you see friends

And it’s the same -- OK.

I always hated fall

It reminds me of good times gone --

The end for all

The end of living in the sun

And the north wind comes.

Yesterday, a tree of fire red

Today, bony fingers are pointing

To a sky grey that's dead

I hate the fall

It always marked the end for me

But spring will come again

And I will hopefully see another?

Bacon School

I read a posting on Facebook about the R.M. Bacon School Anniversary reunion - if it wasn't over 906 miles away I would have gone...it would be fun to see my elementary school once again...maybe not fun to see classmates who have grown old like me.  -  and then I thought about my first day of school there…

...The R.M. Bacon School was 4 blocks north of our little house on Third & Stratton Avenue.  My 5th birthday in November was to late in the school year so I had to wait to start kindergarten until I was almost 6.  I was always big and now I tower over the other kids.  Unbelievably, I can remember the new shirt I wore that first day of school.  It was light brown and had a drawing of an Indian Chief in a feathered headdress stenciled on the pocket.  Why?  The whys of true art can’t be explained and be questioned. I was assigned to the afternoon half day session. It was considered at my time that a full day was too long for our little minds or maybe it was the teachers who couldn’t take a longer day?   Today the kids stay all day and some into the early evening under the watchful (sometimes) eyes of teacher aides schooled in watching students play video games. 

Early that morning Mom kissed me goodbye then she went to work.  (She had a tear in her eye.  As for me, I couldn't wait to go to school.)  Nanny packed me a snack and walked me to school with other mothers, caretakers and their polished kids.   We joined a long caravan slowly going up 3^rd street.  The school yard was alive with kids; girls playing hopscotch and boys shooting marbles.  I had my new Buster Brown's on and they squeaked as I crossed the big playground.  A bell high on the walk clanged and the older kids who had devoured their cafeteria lunches automatically lined up to march into the afternoon session. The new kindergartners waited at their own special entrance that led up a curving staircase to the “nursery/classroom” with it's big bay window.  Nanny took me to the foot of the stairs, handed me my brand-new Roy Rogers lunch box containing 4 cookies and a bunch of grapes.  Our teacher, Mrs. Garton was at the top of the stairs waiting to greet us. Happy kids filed by her smiling and excited.  I followed and as I greeted my teacher I experienced high anxiety for the first time in my life - I realized that I was not going to have Nanny with me for the whole afternoon.   I grabbed the railing and hung on for dear life as Mrs. Garton softly said, “Come, let’s not keep the others waiting.”  I didn’t budge.  She gently took my arm thinking I might be afraid to climb the stairs.  I tightened my grip.  She gave a harder tug and I could see my grandmother coming forward.  Mrs. Garton’s voice changed.  “It's time to go to school,” she said, raising her voice.”  That did it.  A low whine of "NO" started deep in my gut and grew louder as she pulled on me.   Now the older kids started to hear that there was something going on – a kid was stuck to the railing.  This seemed to delight them.  They started to hoot and holler. And I whined louder.   My classmates were seeing their own deepest fears come true - a couple started to bowl with me.  They were having second thoughts now about what lurked at the end of those winding steps.  Mrs. Garton knew she had to act fast before it became group hysteria and she would loose the whole class to  the first day willies 

My grip was vise like.  Adrenalin spiked and fanned my resolve not to budge.  Mrs. Garton was pulling as hard as she could.  My grandmother joined her, uttering an embarrassed apology..."If only his mother could be here.”  I couldn’t believe she had gone over to the teacher's side in our battle of wills. 

Mrs. Garten, now shouting - “the law says you have to go to school, you...you must...you have to come into the classroom right now....STOP THIS NOW!".  In times of great stress one's survival instincts take over  -  I let go and Mrs. Garton nearly fell on top of me.  Mrs. Garton steadied herself and told my grandmother that she thought it was best to go now and leave me with the professionals.  "All will be alright," she assured her.  My grandmother made a fast exit.  I am sure as she walked the few blocks home she wondered how mom was going to react to this event and hoped that she wouldn’t be blamed "not getting me off to a good start,”  

When Nanny got to our house I was waiting for her at the back door. I had simply walked out after Mrs. Garton led me to my seat.  I feigned defeat only to escape and make my way by the “wilderness” route (the unpaved 4^th street through the woods) tand beat her home.  “Calvin”!  Nanny immediately walked me back to school (after a hard shot on my behind which convinced me that my revolt was over).  It was my fate. I had to go to school.  

I went up the stairs unassisted, looking back only once - and never missed another day of school (on purpose) - only giving in when I had the vast array of kid diseases.  My love of learning was kindled that day - and it has never dimmed since.

 

.  

LONG SUMMER DAYS

Summer...after waiting all year those long summer days were finally here...

Those wonderful days so long ago,

When kid’s games passed the hours

Lazy days in the sun.

Shagging flies in brown grass fields.

Playing catch, after steamy showers

.

Those were the long days…

On the porch out of midday sun

A hot debate;

“Ashburn’s the best in the game.

Never, Mays is, he’s the one!”

They were sweet days…

Water from the hose quenched all 

Mom’s ham and cheese with yellow mustard

Wrapped with tender care

Would be a feast that soothed the soul.

Those were my days

Days that seemed to never end

We played hard from morn to night

Until the streets light bade time to go

And fire flies led us home again.

What full days they were

When I was young

And then to sleep with a cricket's song

And gentle breezes through the pines

Accompanied dreams of homers and cheering throng.

I wish again for those boyhood days

Days I thought would never end

 But they did!

The school bell rang; winter came.

And we yearned for the sun to come again

We dreamed summer dreams

Dreams of games in the summer sun.

This year we’d bat 400…

This year we’d win ‘em all

When only rain could spoil our fun

And we waited for the long days to come again.

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.