AN EASTER CONFECTION

 Easter is a week away, and my mouth is watering for a peanut butter egg...The magical Easter Bunny was coming again...In the kids' year, this was the number two holiday, just a notch below Christmas. And in my family, not only did I get an Easter basket – I always got a new pair of shoes. Whether I needed them or not!

On our annual pilgrimage to Freeman's shoes store, where I got to look at the bones of my feet. (I learned years ago that his magical machine was a fluoroscope unit – that was radiating with X-rays, practically every kid in Millville, a couple of times a year.)  But our shoes always fit. (A shoe store never would use this marketing device in today's more health-conscious environment.)

Fred, the greatest shoe salesman, would make a face that said "Oh No" when we walked in because he knew I would try on every shoe in the store (to make up my mother's mind for me) and would immediately go to bring up the first armload of shoe boxes from the basement storeroom.  And my job began - try one shoe on for over an hour; walk up to the mirror and back. Continue until mother announces, "he likes that one!" The ordeal ended. Shopping for shoes was a tribulation. Shopping for toys was fun. But the only fun here was my chance to see the tiny picture of Buster Brown and his dog Tige inside the heel of my shoe.   Every time I looked at it, I would hear his commercial on the radio. "I'm Buster Brown. I live in a shoe. That's my dog Tige. Look for him there, too." I was always sad when their smiling faces inevitably wore off.  

It seemed every pair of shoes I ever got had a squeak in one of them every other step I took for a month, to the delight of my classmates. I always got a laugh when I was called to go to the blackboard to solve a math problem. I didn't always get a new outfit for our Easter Sunday visit to the Fourth Methodist Church, but I could count on a new pair of shoes. 

But back to the important stuff, Easter was made for me at 9 years – the goodies. Next on our agenda was our annual trip to the great candy haven on High Street – Giuffra's, the town's own confectioner. Wow! A real candy factory that predated Willie Wonka's - just thinking about the aromas in their showroom makes me hungry for one of their famed chocolate bunnies, wrapped in purple foil.  The scents in the retail shop were a magical combination of chocolate, licorice, and powdered sugar that I loved to smell the moment we walked in the door. Each year, I stared at a four-foot chocolate Bunny on display in the window. It seemed to grow each year, and I wonder, to this day, if it was real or just wood painted a deep brown… did some kid really ever get one like this? How long would it last? Would you (could you) be allowed to eat it all by yourself? Alas, the store is gone now (like many on our main street). I will never know the answer to the mystery of the giant bunny.

I always went directly to the giant display case, which held an array of great "homemade sweets. On display was the store's main product - personalized, filled Easter eggs in two varieties that ranged from a small quarter-pounder to a football-sized pound of goodness – I hoped that I would find a coconut-filled egg again this year in my basket, with my name inscribed in white script. I also made sure mom knew I didn't like the other kind with the pink stuff and a yellow center. Definitely not as tasty.

Now, years later, I realize that our visit to the candy store was my mother's clever way of seeing if my tastes for Easter candy delights had changed. She was never one to waste a penny on something I didn't like. She would return later to help Mr. Bunny fill my basket - ensuring I would need, sooner than later, another visit to Doc Abrams, the ever-drilling dentist - I think I alone supported his family.

Frankly, I still believed in Santa Claus. I was just hedging my bet, just in case on the big one, but I really couldn't believe in the Easter Bunny!  Even at my callow age, I couldn't fathom how a small rabbit, even a magical one, could bring a heavy candy-laden basket to every kid, everywhere. But I went along with it to humor my mother.

I must confess that at nine years old, I already had an obsession. With much self-restraint, I made my Easter candy last a whole week. I ration my intake to one marshmallow peep at a time and so forth. I was positive that my friends ate everything in their baskets the first day – they were a bunch of outrageous hedonists all!  I, however, righteously believed this sacrifice made the candy sweeter and the fun last for a couple of more days. I have to admit I was a very weird kid.

  Moral to this story: Waiting just takes longer.  If I could do it all over, I would eat everything in the basket before the first church bell rang!  

NEW BEGINNINGS

  They're back! 

   Kids are no longer opening their laptops instead of their lunch boxes.  They have been waiting for the pandemic of 2020 to disappear - it hasn’t all together but most schools are open and my grandaughter is seeing her friends again.  Teachers, parents and students are all hoping for a return to normal (will there ever will be a normal again?) 

And then I remember my first day in college…my summer job torture was done until next summer and I'm commuting and leaving my Millville kid-days behind.  I drove our family VW Bug (we only had one car in my growing up unlike today when kids get real cars for Christmas).   My Dad was “bumming”  a ride, as he said, from a guy  who worked with at the glass plant so I could get to Glassboro (Another town after it’s industry) and to the campus of  Glassboro State College.  I was extremly happy my summer of “real” work in one of Millville’s sweaty glass plants was over until the spring and I’d mostly likely be working shifts packing more bottles.  

GSC was a short commute and I would come to know every inch of the old concrete highway with a bump at every seam as I drove back and forth (and sometimes back again for an event).  This was the first day as an Art Education major at a teacher’s college but in reality my journey started long before this ride.  I was heading to the local college as most of my friends were on their way to “bigtime” schools.  Gus to Duke.  Bub to Penn.  Frank to Brown.  And Cal to GSC for two reasons - I couldn’t afford a big school.  And I hate math.  To get into an ivy covered institution one had to have great greats in “advanced” math - like calculus and “trig” (trigonometry).  Note:  After 60 years I still don’t know what algebra is for or why I took two years of it?  My BMF Bub was a whiz at math and wanted to be an architect.  A profession where I presumed it was needed because he would be constantly measuring 2 x 4’s and tons of concrete.  As for me - I was more of a fine arts type.  I like to draw.  He like to “draft”.   And I was really good at drawing stuff that looked like what I was drawing.  From kindergarten I was told “you should be an artist...you are a good drawer...etc.   And so in my junior year at good ole Memorial High I ceased taking math and filled my class schedule with art class and study hall.  For most art was an elective that was part of the “liberal arts” for a cultured person.  For me it was my “calling”.   Plus, I didn’t have to measure anything or figure how long it would take a plane to fly to California at 300 miles an hour.  (Math word problems always were stupid in my mind.  Couldn’t figure out why anyone would care about the question asked (except pilots maybe).

And so while my friends had been sending their transcripts of honor society grades to universities I was shipping art portfolios to the best schools close to home (I didn’t want to go too far as I was basically a “home body” as my grandmother Ethel called me.  And frankly I was worried that I would go halfway across the country and then not have the money to get home for Christmas and miss all my pal’s tales of adventure and conquests of coeds. 

A couple of months passed and like most kids except the “math-sharks” like David I waited nervously for letters of acceptance from at least one of my4 applications.  And to my surprise I got into all four schools I applied to - Pratt, The Philadelphia Museum College of Art.  The New School and GSC (my backup as recommended by my guidance counselor because he said, “Art school is very competitive and they have the choice of the best of the best!”  This scared me.).  Then I got an even bigger surprise - I was offered a full scholarship to the Museum College which was a lot of money.

 

  What is it with college kids and beer?  The need to feel like free grown ups.  Or just plain fun on a Friday night?  On many campuses the joy-juice runs freely but at  “teachers college” there is a need for the future teachers to be examples of clean minds and clean living.  So we had our parties a few miles away!

On a fateful Valentine’s weekend I learned a valuable lesson about the evils of beer.  A few miles from our institution of high ideals was an entrepreneurial farmer who made a good living for years  renting his barn during the winter season.  Admission was $10 bucks and the several kegs of watery beer was “free” - thus avoiding any complications with the local constabulary.  I had never been to this shindig because I usually went across the river to my best friend's Bub dorm party at the U of P.  But this weekend Bub had invited a new coed prospect to a Valentine’s dinner.  And so I gave it a try - and it became an  evening I would not live down with my dorm friends for months to come.

I am and never was a big “drinker” unlike many of my buddies who were “Olympic Boozers”.  That night it was unseasonably warm in the barn.  And the beer was so darn cold.  I am also not a great dancer but I am told a few hours into our bacchanal I picked out a freshman girl who was delighted to dance with an upperclassman.  I celebrated the holiday for love and danced the night away until the farmer flashed the lights and the party was over.  I don’t remember being driven back to campus by my roommate who only drank rootbeer.  

Sunday morning I awoke with my first hangover.  My roomie suggested that I get some breakfast right away.  I dragged myself over to the cafeteria and waiting at the door was a young lady that looked vaguely familiar.  She ran up to me and gave me a big hug.  I weakly said, “Do I know you?”  “Know me,” she blurted. “You gave me your college ring last night.  We’re going steady!”  I checked my hand and my new ring was gone.  My roommate and several others from my floor were listening to this encounter with smiles on their faces a mile wide.  I apologized  to the girl whose name I hadn’t gotten yet.  And she laughed. Took off my ring from the chain around her neck and tossed it at me.  My buddies hooted as they shook hands with the young lady who said, “How’s I do?”  “Great" was the reply in unison.  She sauntered off and we never crossed paths again.  I glared at my “pals” and then tried to eat - but the smell of searing bacon made me quite nauseous and I retired to my dorm room.  If I had a tail it would have been between my legs.

That night I learned some important lessons that would come in handy for most of my later life.  Know your capacity.  Always count your drinks.  And avoid hot barns on a Saturday night. 

 

GSC was a teacher’s college which became a college college during my 4 years there - thus our team “mascot” was The Profs which never change and is still associate with Rowan University which our small college in a small town has “morphed” into a sprawling major institution.   During my 4 years at GSC I had many excellent “profs” -  but some stand out, not because of their teaching, but because of their methods of teaching.

The head of the education department, Professor Wang taught a freshman course called “Intro to Teaching”.   His first lecture went something like this:

“Students I suggest that you refrain from turning your back on your class, keep eye contact.  He turned around and started an outline on the blackboard.  Next I suggest that outlining is key ideas is not a good idea.  Let the student take his own notes as this is much better for retention.”  And so it went.  At first I thought he was doing this to make a point but after a few classes I realized that he had not idea how to teach and at the end of 15 weeks neither did I.

The historic first stately building on  Campus was Bunce Hall.  My freshman world history class was taught by Professor Bunce.  I learned from an upper class friend that he was known as “Lullaby Bunce”.  I also learned that most of the instructors at the school had student originated nicknames.  It took only one class for me to see how this monicar fit Prof B.  “Welcome to World Civilization 101," he muttered.  Then he took a thick pack of large index cards from his briefcase, took off the rubber band holding them in order and began to read - head down and locked for 40 minutes. Five minutes into his lecture the man with the hypnotic voice (Term borrowed from Mandrake the Magician comic strip) had most of the class sleeping with their eyes open.  Fifthteen weeks later he read the last card but the rubberband around the stack and said, “Class dismissed!”

I will never forget my Child Psych teacher.  He constantly mispronounced the term puberty in his lectures and this word was used a lot in the course.   He always said - Puba-try.  It was hard for us all not to break out in titters of levity.  One day around the midterm when we enter the classroom “someone” (My friend Jim B was always suspected as the perp) had drawn a large tree on the blackboard and hanging on each limb was a “fruit” that looked very much like the male testicle.  We waited with baited brief for our mentor to arrive.  He finally entered, checked the board and chuckled.  And began his lecture.  I firmly believe to this day he never got the connection to his famous spoonerism

There are many minor memories - There was a math teacher who constantly said, “Howsomeever” every time he revealed an answer to a sample calculation.  The head of the art department who “taught” Painting Studio, a senior subject. The first day of class he entered the studio and said, “Paint 5 painting” and left - we never saw him again until the last meeting.  I painted all of my masterpieces in one weekend.  Of all the media I could have used I chose "egg-tempura" a favorite of the "old masters". It wasn't a favortte of my roomate as our suite smelled like rotten eggs for weeks after I finished. I delivered them to the last class where each student’s work was place on easels and critiqued by our mystery prof.  When he got to mine he touched one and said to me, “Still wet Mister Iszard?”  I replied, “For me, Sir, a painting is never done!”  A lame excuse but the only one I could muster up as all five of my oil paintings were still wet. Another notable was my English prof who was nationally known as the "Underground Grammarian" who printed a very "colonial days" looking pamphlet of examples of poor writing read by many. I fear a comma fault for years after his course.

But the top memory of all profs is of my British Literature professor who every class came dressed in a costume that coincided with the topic or time of the novel we read that week.  (A British novel a week was a tough class as most English writers were very long winded.)  About halfway through the class we had all gotten used to the costumes one of my most bizarre college experience happened in this Lit class.  We heard a knock on the window of our second floor classroom and saw that our teacher was standing on the ledge 50 feet about the holly bushes beckoning someone to “run to the window and throw up the sash”  After the shock abated someone did and he entered the room, made his way to the lectern and said, “I always wanted to do that!”  

And we nor he ever mention it again!

 

The fall always brings back memories of my college days...and then I reminisce about the 60's and a new madras shirt, polished chinos and penny loafers that squeaked when I first walked Glassboro State's Bunce echoing hall to my first year college class. It was there I first saw her in a sea of young women all dressed in their best stuff too.  Why I use the tired cliche “sea” metaphor? Because that was the way it felt for me.  At that time, Glassboro State females outnumbered males 7 to 1!  Gals from far away places with strange sounding names to South Jersey guys like Bayonne...Perth Amboy...Teaneck... mysterious places where we had never been.  And among them all that day one caught my eye right away.  Instead of sporting the “big hair” that was trendy in the 60’s she had very short and wavy hair - this got my attention.

As the days passed, I kept seeing her, sitting on “the wall” in front of Memorial hall, surrounded by laughing classmates (mostly guys).  In the “Co-Op” our smokey snack bar. She had energy that one could feel two booths away.  She would soon to be a cheerleader, freshman class officer.  She was “involved” quickly in college life.

And I was smitten!  But my hopes were dashed when I noticed she was constantly with upper class guys.  We met in some activity but from then saying “hi” was as much as I could muster.  (I was very shy in my first days as a "Prof". But that, as college friends will attest, changed dramatically as the my first semester evaporated and I became a “cool and sophisticated” sophomore. And I had given up the idea of me and  “Nancy with the Smiling Face”.   I got very involved myself.  Campus players, SGA Senate and I must admit, with some wonderful lady classmates along the way. My college days were great days.  

Three years later “fate” brought Nancy and I together.  She was elected the student government Secretary. I was President.  We worked together on projects; started to meet for lunch which progressed to dates and much more.  Thanksgiving I even drove across "the big bridge" to Teaneck - this yokel had never driven on the turnpike that far north before. 

As the amazing romantic scent of the following May’s apple blossoms permeated  campus, I proposed to her in the parking lot of her dorm. She said yes and we planned to marry the next.  And the rest is history as they say.

The moral: “Never give up and always be aware of those with great hair!”

     Spring always brings one of my favorite memories the time I starred in a musical comedy…and I still can repeat the lines I  memorized 40+ years ago…

In my sophomore year at Glassboro State I got bitten by the acting bug after I was recruited for a small part in A Midsummer’s Night Dream by my British Literature (a ponderous course but that’s another story).  I had to read some Shakespeare in high school but never really understood the “old English” phrases.  But I said “Why Not!” this could be fun.  And so I played Snout the Tinker or has a couple of lines and I got some laughs.  Getting laughs was what I “lived for” most of my life.  It made up for being shy and chubby.  The night the show closed after a short run there was a notice on the dressing room door - Casting for  the Spring Musical - The Music Man…all who can sing and dance please tryout.  I never could dance but I was confident I could sing (mostly in the shower and never in front of anybody).  So once again I said “Why Not!”

Why not?  I loved Broadway Musicals even though I had never seen one -but movies had introduced me to Kismet, Brigadoon, Oklahoma and my favorite of all - The Music Man.  And I already knew the “Trouble song” which was a masterpiece sung by Robert Preseton in the movie I had seen five times.  

I rehearsed in my dorm room that one sung (which by the way was really not sung - it’s was a stream of words accompanied by an orchestra:

“Well my friends, you got trouble (oh we got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here in River City)

With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool

(That stands for pool)

We've surely got trouble (we've surely got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here)

Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule

(Our children's children gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble...)

The song was a long litany of words spoken/sung at  a machine gun pace - And I knew them all by heart and all of the other songs in the show too.

The casting call night arrived and the auditorium front seats held several dozen students and sitting up front in the first row alone was the director of the Campus Players, Dr. Michael K. holding a clipboard just like in the movies.  I waited my turn as students (who were all veteran campus plays did a couple bars accompanied by the Assistant Director playing an ancient upright rehearsal piano.  It looked like it was a “shoo-in” for the upper class thespians who had dozens of shows to their credit.  Director K cut them off with “Next” after only a few bars of the song they chose.  I noted that none sang a song from the show. Finally the new folks were were called.   I hopped up on the stage and Mr. K asked what I would like to sing.  I answered “The Trouble Song”.  He replied “really Cal that’s are hard on…are your sure you want to try it.”  I replied, “Love to give it a try!”  There were a couple of sniggers in the audience.  I took a couple of big breaths and nodied to the piano players.  And in my best impersonation of Mr. Preston I began with the downbeat.  After a few lines I was expected to here “Next” but I didn’t.  I was the only “actor” that did an entire song.  The director thanks me.  There were a few others and Dr. K closed the session with the standard “will be posting our cast list in a few days and rehearsals will begin.”

I wasn’t nervously waiting because I was sure that if I got a part it would be in the chorus - that’s where the new members usually go until they have earned leading roles in the Players shows.  I stopped by the theater office a few days later after a class in the building and saw a group surrounding the door reading a taped list.  There was lots of chatter and occasional acknowledgments that the reading got a part in the play.  I finally got close enough to read for myself and then almost fainted.  At the top of the list was:  C. ISZARD - Harold Hill (The Music Man)!

The next weeks flew by - nightly rehearsal, personal singing lessons, custom fittings, dancing lessons (the choreographer finally gave up on me and all of Harold’s dances were cut from the show).  The hundreds of lines I had down quickly because I knew the show so well.  One of the hardest tasks was singing the first few notes that got a barbershop quartet starting to sing their song - at rehearsal the stage manager blew the first note on a pitch pipe from the wings before me.  I started to get nervous when the set pieces began to appear and River City began to take shape.

And then it was dress rehearsal night, one of two we would do.  The first for the blocking and lines; the second for the orchestra and for the first time the full local high school band marched down the aisle blasting 76 Trombones which would be a surprise close to the show during the cast bows (which we finally practiced) for the final curtain.

Show night was a blur but the show was a hit.  The talk on campus was everywhere.  The second night we played standing room only.  I learned the hard way that traditionally the second night of a show is the toughest because the cast tries too hard to reproduce the opening night performance energy.  I learned another dreaded theatrical phrase - going up in one’s lines - meaning forgetting what to say next.  I learned it can happen to most professionals after many performances - mine happen the second night.  The signature song (and easiest for me) was 76 Trombones.  By now I had “sung” it 100 times but when it was time to sing it in the show.  I started to sing the second stanza: 

Seventy six trombones caught the morning sun,

With a hundred and ten cornets right behind. 

(But I had not idea what came next so I sang what rhymed)

 - With a hundred and cornet spring up like buns and then start to mumble)

I looked at the orchestra leader for help.  He had stopped waving his white baton abd with great exaggeration mouthed the next line.  And then I was back on and the song flowed out of me.  My moment of complete terror was over.

I only let my ego as “leading man” get the best of me once during the whole show.  On the third night of the show there was a crowd of chorus members and dancers at the door of the costume shop.  Many were impatient waiting to be handed their outfit by the wardrobe person.  A couple were grousing when I pushed in an interrupted - “Folks if I don’t get my stuff now nobody will need a costume to go on tonight!”  They all silenced and looked at me with withering looks.  And I withered and vowed never to play being the “star” of a show - a lesson that would come in handy for years to come.

Our two week run to full houses came to a close.  And like every final curtain i had quickly changed into a very white bandleaders costume with plumed hat and large baton.  After the entire cast took their bows I entered, not from the wings but from a side door and marched across the stage.  What happened next, each night was one of the big surprises of my life and cemented my destiny to go into the entertainment business.  The audience started to pop out of their seats until there were hundreds giving me a “standing ovation” which sent an electrical charge up my spine and out my fingers. I bowed, joined the cast and the traveling curtain closed.

And to this day remembering that moment I feel that applause - it is indeed like an aphrodisiac that compels ever actor to continue and hope for more. 

 

   

Not only was my college Christmas a time for miracles but In my sophomore year it became the most magical in the history of my dear Alma Mater.   I stopped commuting my sophomore year and moved into Mullica hall, the new one of the two men’s dorms on campus (Why? The main reason, commuting I was missing most of the “college life” (another term for getting dates and drinking booze - there were seven women’s dorms on campus!  This greatly improved my chances of actually living the college life).

And celebrating the coming Christmas break after final exams was one of the best events in the semester.  And my first proved to be one that became a once in a lifetime event for the 100 guys in our dorm.  After we returned from Thanksgiving the semester raced to it’s conclusion and it was time to decorate. The student government sponsored an annual decorating contest and we, the new kids on the block, were determined to win on our first try.  We had a meeting in our lounge and our first idea was to solicit paid spies who would check out the competition and we would wait for their report and then produce a “winning” design.  At our next meeting the surveillance results proved to be daunting - we needed something special to take the prize.  After an hour of brain-storming that got nowhere Steve, a senior proclaimed - “Leave it all to me…I guarantee we will win!”  And we gladly did because we all were devoid of another plan.  Plus, Steve had produced several great beer parties that fall in a nearby farmer’s barn.

The very next night a red ribbon tied to a pine branch appeared on each of our doors. But the fact was this wasn’t much of an award-winning effort. Many of us grumbled and I was resigned to the fact that this would not be our year.  Nothing more was acomplised until the evening before the judging when fully decorated flocked trees appeared on each floor; a giant one in our lounge and each hallway was “decked” with boughs of holly and blinking lights.  Everyone was totally amazed.  And the next day we won the prize with a Proclamation that our efforts (Steve’s that is) were the best in the long history of the contest. 

Several days later we learned how this had taken happened.  On the dorm bulletin board was a news article from the local weekly paper.  “City’s Decorations DIsappear and Reappear” was the lead story about how someone had “stolen” trees and decorations from the Annual Christmas Tree Charity Sale in the lot next to our town's police headquarters and then they were mysteriously returned the next night. How this was done and no suspects have been discovered.         Steve and his "committee" never mentioned or admitted that they were the perps that pulled off what would be known as the “Great Christmas Caper”.

Ahd we never asked.  But we did lose a bit of our confidence in our local police department.

     I have many wonderful memories growing up…and the Fall always makes me think of school...for some a beginning and for others the end of the beginning...

    Now June ‘62 I was finally a high school graduate and considered myself grownup even though I still had a lot to learn.  Now it time for me to learn the lesson of hard work. To “cut the apron strings” as grandmother Ethel would say.  She seemed to have a saying about everything I said.  I graduated on a Thursday and reported to my first real job on the midnight shift Sunday.  My two and a half days of summer vacation was over.  And my season of discontent had begun.  I would labor in a hot glass factory for three months - but it was the highest paying summer job for a student in town and I would pocket a small fortune - almost $100 bucks a week.

    Even though I moved away from my hometown almost 50 years ago I still read about Millville on-line. Yesterday there was an announcement that the Wheaton Glass plant was closing…the one time lifeblood of the city’s and it's working people…the factory.  And I think about my first day of really hard work - I ever did…

Wheaton Glass Circa 1962

…I dressed in the standard factory uniform – tan khaki’s and white tee shirt.  And had on my first pair of ‘work' shoes – hard toed heavy black ones that my dad insisted that I wear that first day.  They made my feet sweat and I felt like Frankenstein plodding around in them.  Dad worked at the same plant, one of two massive factories in “Glasstown”.  He worked in th cool AC of the “Pentagon” as the executive offices were fondly called by the unwashed.  He was a master craftsman - model maker.  His models were the first step in producing a designer's graphic idea of a bottle.  He drove me to the north gatehouse a half hour before my shift. We were going to share our only car getting to work. I joined the parade of zombies marching to their various jobs in the steamy heat.  I only recognized a couple of my school friends trudging along.  There wasn’t much conversation and very few smiles. I would grow here an learn that factory "shift workers" were much different then those in my former world of school, sports and fun - They were very serious people

    As we walked into smokey building the temperature rose from a pleasant 70’s to what seemed to be close to what hell feels like.  It had to be 110 degrees – and thus why they called this area of the plant the “hot end.”  But more than the heat the noise was deafening.  A constant dissonance;  a droning that I would learn came from the glassblowing machine, behemoths that “blew” a never ending stream of molten glass into bottles. One could actually “smell” the heat as we all hurriedly walk to packing area. I followed the line of workers to the end of some very long covered converyors belts. At the end of each out came a never ending parade of bottles. And in there midst was a small "packing house office". What I remember most is that it was air conditioned. I had been in the glass business for five minutes and alreadly a cool room was actually a bit chilly but not as much as my reception.  I was met by the “foreman” who look up from a pile of forms and scowled at me. I knew him from the outer world.  His son and I played football together.  But here in the plant he had a totally different personality.  He immediately told me he was the “boss” and no longer was a friend.  My work "orentation" - He tossed me a gate pass, and then ordered me to report to the assistant foreman out on the floo, The second in command didn't waste any words and immediately said, “See this damn %^&# mess (a six foot high cluttered bunch of torned cartons, broken pallets and other stuff I didn’t recognize). "Yes sir", I replied as I cupped my ear even though he was shouting. "Move this crap to the other end of the building, pile it up neat and then come back sweep up this area. Use that hand. Use that broom.  Mr. Wheaton likes a clean and uncluttered factory.”  And he marched away. The first real work day of my life had begun.  

    I didn’t mind this job because it was only about 96 degrees here away from the hot end. However, I did feel the task a bit below my skill level – I was now a certified a high school graduate!  Later in the lunch room I learn very quickly not to broadcast that fact as most of the workers and the few bosses resented all summer hires.

    I spent the next couple of hours moving a mountain about 100 yards to the other end of the packing house.  Twice the assistant foreman stopped by, looked, flashed a smirky smile and left without a word.  I guessed I was doing what he wanted?  When finished I still had six hours left to this sendless night - it seemed time had slowed down. I stood learning on my broom when the assistant foreman marched up to me. "Nice pile - now move all that stuff back to where you found it. The foreman said he rather have it where it was!"  I was speechless. By 4:AM I had moved this dreck to five differenct placea in the warehous.  And I discovered time was relative. My two 15 minute breaks and 1 half-hour lunch of a wilted peanut butter sandwich flew by.  Finally, the sun light tried to shine through the years of gunk on the safety glass windows. I was in the home stretch and exhauted. My legs felt like lead. A loud whistle blew and the robot packers and filed out much faster than they filed in the inferno. I learnd by the end of the week that we all couldn't wait to get out of work and get to sleep. I parked by industrial sized broom in a corner and join the herd. Dad was waiting to drive me home where I dived into bed without saying a single work and was instantly out cold. Kids love to stay up late - I a newly formed "adult" needed my sleep and I slept the enitre day away - another first. My mom woke me at supper time and I felt like I had been in bed ten minutes. Once again experiencing the mysteries of time. Between yawns I recounted "busy work" experience and the only remark from Dad was, “that’s factory work for ya!"  I reported to the assistant foreman the that night whic swiftly arrived.  He looked at me, laughed. “No more moving stuff. Tonight you're gong to learn how to soak corks." I almost fainted. I was led to a tub of water and he explained the task (which less complicated than moving crap. "Take a cork from that bin and dunk them in the water. When the tub fills with corks put them in the other bin and somebody will pick them up. That's it." He walked away assuming I "got" it.

    That night I got my first case of "dishpan hands!" soaking hundreds of corks. At first I counted them just for fun but got tired of this amusement when I hit number 2500. Sometime that night standing there I had another "Got It" An epithany. I realized that the sem–boss was making up work for me because they could not just have me standing around getting paid for nothing.

    I was an apprentice "cork soaker" until the first "real" packer took their vacation and never went back to the broom or the tub again that summer. And it was indeed a summer of learning about the way of the world. I loved my lunch break because I could listen to the constant babble of the regulars (the people I probably would have never met.)  Their standard conversation centered on baseball, horseracing or the romantic escapades of certain notorious male and female packers at the plant.  I listened to folks who had been doing this job for 40+ years. By the way my (union contract required) paid lunch was 30 mintues but it took about a 5 minute to the lunch room and back so the actual break was a whole 20 minutes.  I also got a 10 minute break every 2 hours - but didn't race to the breakroom - I sat on a pallet of boxes and enjoyed getting the feeling back in my feet. I continue this routine for the next ten weeks.  But beyond the work of a skilled packer who learn to inspect each bottle for dozens of different flaws - I learned one of the greatest lessons of my life.  

    After only a few weeks of my first sumer job I definitely knew that would study hard and graduate from college.  I lived the life of how hard some people (who weren't as smart or perhaps just not lucky as me) worked to simply live. And I learned who was the best shortstop in the National League and how the different odds are determined for a horse race.

WEARING OF THE GREEN

    There were many mysteries in my life growing up... and one of them was why we observed some traditions in my family.  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 asked 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 and looked it up in my encyclopedia because we didn't learn much about the feasts of many Saints in the 4th Methodist Sunday school class.  When I asked 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 she would bring me something good to eat, wrapped in a green napkin, when she came home, because she always saved me a treat from her lunchtime holiday parties.  After school that day, the kitchen smelled much different – it always did on holidays.  And this afternoon, like all others, 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 a bland 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 glad 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 homemade 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's days... Eating cabbage is not all that lucky.

(Note: Decades later, my 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 Brussels sprouts and cabbage without complaint.