BOY WITH A HORN

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Looking through some old pictures I wondered how many were taken out in front of our little house in South Millville?  25-50-100? – Lots because in my growing up days we never seemed to have a flashbulb handy…but Joan Crawford’s “key light” was always there…

One picture got me thinking – “Boy with a Horn” I always called it.  Me in profile blowing a middle C on my rented golden trumpet and wearing pants with a wide strip down the leg…

And then I was back in Millville.  The pants were hand-me-down  Millville High School marching band pants procured by our band teacher of the Bacon Junior School for our Annual Spring Concert.

They were heavy wool halftime show uniform pants – blue with an orange strip and guaranteed to itch like heck in the spring heat on stage.  They must have been used by someone 6’5” as my grandmother hemmed them up at least 10 inches for me – a fourth grade 2^nd Trumpeter.

But first things first - it all started with picking a musical instrument and taking music lessons – which my mother thought was necessary to mold me into the gentleman she hoped I would become.  

I stood for a very long time peering in the window of the Millville Music Center, land of 10,000 records in racks that lined the walls and musical instrument emporium.  It was time to decide which instrument to take.  I looked hard at a saxophone = too many keys, “That’s got to be hard!” I said to myself.  

The trombone, no keys, that would have to be hard too to master with no keys to push.  

“Ah,” I mused – the trumpet.  Just three keys, not too many to master.  I piped up to my mom standing with me on that fall day – “I think I would like to play a trumpet.”   She smiled and we rented a golden horn – with only a small dent in the bell.  And so began 8 years of trying to play a loud brass horn.

Oh, why didn’t I pick guitar?  Or banjo?  Instruments that one could play around a friendly campfire.  But no.  I picked the trumpet – I would learn later that one rarely hears someone at a cocktail party pulling out his trumpet and blasting a few numbers for the revelers…the trumpet is not a party instrument.

 I was shortly going to learn that I had absolutely no aptitude for music.  Matter fact years later when I would appear in musical stage plays the director would cut the songs or dances from my scenes after several rehearsals.

But I tried to play on…and on…and on.  

All summer I blasted scales waiting patiently for my teacher Mr. Leski, the go-to music teacher virtuoso of Millville music teachers to actually give me a real song to play – but each week he would say, “Keep at it my boy, and soon you will be playing a beautiful melody for your mom.”

I kept it up.

 

Now Mr. Leski had a very unique teaching technique.  He used phrases to help us kids learn the timing of each kind of musical note.  “Get it” = two beat half notes.  “San Francisco” = 4 beat quarter notes.  And so I constantly practiced my scales with beating foot and get-it-get-it-san-fransico in my head. 

I blew every variation of a scale known to ever been played.  

My grandmother made me practice for at least an half hour every afternoon after school as the days grew shorter.  The in October my chance to play a real song came.  Miss Now our maiden music teacher visited my 4^th grade classroom recruiting members for the Bacon Junior School band.  When she asked if anyone studied a musical instrument I jumped up and waved my hand at her.  And that’s how I got to wear the blue pants with an orange strip a few months later.

However, it wasn’t an easy journey for me.  All winter we practiced for the annual Spring PTA concert.  Playing our numbers over and over twice a week – but band practice did get me out of class and to the big auditorium stage.  It sure beat faking the need to go to the restroom to break the drudgery of working elementary arithmetic problems on the blackboard. 

I wanted to play songs – but I really wasn’t very good at playing them.  And as 2^nd trumpet I really wasn’t playing the melody anyhow – just a lot of low tones that were supposed to harmonize and give the music depth and majesty.

But when I practiced this stuff – it just sounded like da-da-da…da-da.   No majesty.

Plus, my big fear was making a mistake and blowing one of my famous screeching bad notes that were always coming from me as I was developing embouchure as Mr. Leski labeled my upper lip - that felt like hamburger after practice.

And so I started to just hold the instrument to my mouth and pretend I was playing to the chagrin of our first trumpeter – a seventh grader.  Occasionally he would elbow me during one of our weekly assembly performances of marching in and out music – “Hey kid, give me some help!” he would bark between stanzas.

I started to hate playing in this band.

And then one day with only a few weeks to go to the big concert the first trumpeter was absent.  Before Ms. Now raised her baton she said directly to me, “While Jim is out please play the first part Cal.” 

Gads I couldn't hide anymore.  

Everyone looked my way – Mary Jane lowered her violin and gave me a leering smile.  She knew I never really played – everyone knew except Miss Now…

I started to sweat.  Get-It Get-It…San Francisco started to drum in my head.  This was going to be a mortifying moment of truth.

Tapping her long baton, Miss Now said, “Turn to number 4 in your song book – let’s try a new one today.”  Good grief not only was I going to have to actually play, but a new song I didn’t even know.

I place the horn to my lips.  Watched for the downbeat and to my surprise a pleasing, blatt- free sound flowed from my horn.  It was a real song coming out and one that I knew – my grandmother loved this song and sang it many times while she did her ironing.    

At last, I was playing a tune.  

And out of the corner of my eye I could see Mary Jane’s look of shear surprise as she sawed her strings.  I'm Always Chasing Rainbows filled the auditorium.  I still love this old standard.  And I walked home that day whistling it. 

And from that day on I played every note on my music sheet.  And enjoyed my trumpet.  I played on for 4 more years – but the day I went to the High School and put on a football uniform I put my horn down and never played it again.

SHOW BIZ WAS MY LIFE

I was watching my grandson do his new math homework and then I was thinking of Bob Riley… he was a my high school math teacher – probably no one would suspect this as he wasn’t the type.  Big, bodybuilder, football line coach.  But he was and he loved a quadratic equation and all that other stuff I avoided.

But one thing he loved more was writing, directing, designing producing, casting and painting the scenery for his annual extravaganza – the MHS Senior Variety Show -  a fundraising tradition that helped us all pay for our trip to Washington that coming spring.

Rile cast the biggest hams in our class – he knew us all as he was our class advisor for four years.  But he always over - used me as a receiver for his classroom joke of the day – kindred spirits I guess, as he new I a walking card file of old jokes and the most hammy of the class wanna be performers.

He searched and found me in study halll and gave me my scripts – good grief I was to be in two skits; a parody of Happy the Clown; Mitch Miller and the Singers - and he ordered me to perform my mostly in my mind -  Iszard the Wizard Magician big stage act.

Good grief this was the downside of being one of his football players and math class welfare case.

We rehearsed on our own in the hallway after school and had just two nights on the big stage.  Rile conned the Home Ec class into designing and producing our costumes.  I painted a very artistic brown paper one size fits all backdrop used in every scene in my Art Class with the help of all the future artists I could muster and our teacher too.

Rile was feverish for days – as his math class floundered while we did a lot doing countless math problems on the blackboard, he spent most of the class time doing what show biz producers mostly do– sweat, re-writes and worry.

We had a very long dress rehearsal– chaos prevailed.  The show ran 4 hours and 13 mintues - it needed cutting to say the least.  Most of the “performers” and I use that term loosely, had never ventured on a stage since Jr. High graduation for a flying handshake.  It showed.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I would have gone over my lines for my skits – but there weren’t any lines.  Rile said, “Your funny Cal, just ad lib…it will be hysterical.” Right Rile" were my only thoughts.  Rile thought everything was funny.

Showtime!

I already owned a set of tails – vintage 1950 from a wholesale house of used theatre costumes in Chicago that I had found in a magazine ad…they were the heaviest wool I have ever worn.  One wouldn’t need a fur coat in the tundra wearing this black serge – I was drenched just putting the outfit on.   And the silk lapels were so large that in a stiff breeze I was certain I might go airborne. 

I was on early in the two act show mainly because I was one of the only “real” acts on the program along with an accordion solo, Flight of the Bumble Bee by Mary Jane our class virtuoso  and a flaming baton twirler, a former Tony Grant’s Star of Tomorrow cast member who appeared on the Steel Pier for a week one summer. 

  My  magic act that my mentor, glass factory sales VP, The Magical Al Marks, the man who tried every hobby, worked up for me used six of his borrowed “tricks” which we magicians never call tricks – they were “effects” and took me a few weeks to master.

All the apparatus was professional quality and still resides in an attic trunk waiting for another magi to appear someday.  Never did return it to the Magical Marks.  And it's too late now.

We worked on my timing in Al’s den wih my “assistant”, Geraldine.  Fact is,  a stage magician doesn’t really need an assistant to manipulate the gimmicks – the assistant is always dressed in a skimpy leggy costume for another reason- to misdirect the audience when needed. On cue she would prance on stage carrying something. The audience's attention is diverted for a few seconds for the magician to set up the magic.  It always works, promised Big Al.  I was dubious. But Gerry did have pretty legs for a high school gal. 

The tricks actually were very mechanical and worked themselves – many of them seen on the Ed Sullivan show – the show that killed magic forever - with too much exposure.   The Pitcher of Milk vanished in a newspaper cone; The Chinese Linking Rings;  The Floating Silver Ball and for a big finish – cutting and restoring a volunteer from the audience's garish tie right before one’s eyes. (A ringer by the way)

We were a hit  and now the rest would be easy for me – at least I thought so.

My next bit, came after Rile did an unending stand-up routine of corn fed jokes.  Next came several “cleaned-up” burlesque blackout bits that were old when the strippers where young – then came our Happy the Clown, a parody of the premiere morning kiddie cartoon show featuring a bunch of coy seniors playing really "snotty" kids.

I was in full clown costume with white grease paint that gave me pimples for a month after the two nights of shows (oh yes our extravaganza was so popular it ran two nights to sell out crowds filling our high school auditorium).

The bit was for me to interview the “little kids” as they came sliding down a kid's slide that Ole Rile had liberated from the city playground for the show.  The first several stuck to the quasi-script parroting Riley’s lines and actually getting some laughs.

But the last one in very short shorts with a big purple bow tie was Gus (one of my fierce competitors in almost every way except math class where he was a wizard and I the moron).

Instead of sliding down the slippery slide as rehearsed,  he jumped off the top of the thing.  Ran around me screaming then without delivering a single line, ran up and kicked me as hard as he could in the shin.

I double up in excruciating pain – as he cackled, stuck out his tongue and darted into the wings to a roar of laughter and applause.  I wasn't acting - this really hurt.  (I walked with a limp for a week afterward)  I couldn’t even speak a line  – the blow took my breath away.  I waved both fists at him in legitimate anger and raced off stage to another big round of applause.

Rile met us in the wings, “That was great Cal and Gus – do it just the same tomorrow night!”  

I glared at the the smiling Cheshire Gus – “The hell I will…” (expletive deleted for family reading) And if I didn't fear expulsion I would have choked him right then and there...

And I knew from that time forward – I would never ever do a painful pratfall to get a laugh -  I would stick to one-liners.

THE BIG RACE

    The sap was running…birds back and on the wing…forsythia blooms abound – it was May again and that always takes me back to memories of Boy’s Week in Millville.  I remember how we looked forward to reading the schedule of events in the Daily Republican.  And this year I was intent on winning the big race.  The Buck Street version of the Akron American Soapbox Derby. 

    Pop Pop Herb and I started in April, when the weather broke, to build my car.  He found four wheels from a baby carriage he spied out on a curb for the garbage truck – this predates the yard sale of later years – in my day junk got tossed, not sold for a buck.  The wheels had wire spokes like a bicycle wheel – and we started with them literally from the ground up to fashion my entry in the race.  Several weeks of toil ensued and as it took shape almost like my drawing of it - I knew it would be a winner.  

    It wasn't very aerodynamic - it looked like a small dog house on a slab of wood.  I had to squeeze my legs into it.  Pop designed the steering mechanism that involved some clothes line, pulleys and a broom stick which we “borrowed” to the chagrin of my grandmother.  As a devotee of the Vineland Stock Car races which I got to visit at least a couple times a summer – I knew what I had to have to be a “real” race driver – I needed a crash helmet.  But where would one find a crash helmet in Millville? – that was affordable to boot.  My mom demanded that I was going to have to wear my football helmet if I wanted to race that thing adding, "I don’t know why you do want to race it down that hill"?  I had no answer except I needed to race because the hill was there!  We tried Garton’s Sport Center to no avail.  And next Jim Bolton’s Sport Spot – another no, but he suggested - "Margaret did you try the Sears Catalogue?"  Slim chance but - why not - we both chimed in unison!  

    To my surprise, after we dug out the mighty tome of dreams which had been relegated to the garage since the week after Christmas – I found on page 459 in the sporting goods section a small photo of a “kids soapbox safety helmet @ $6.95 plus S&H.  I was beside myself – but did we have the time for it to come parcel post?  That was the key question.

    Every day for two weeks I looked for the big brown truck to drive up – somehow thinking it would only come when I was home after school.  But it did not come – gads.  A week before the big event we painted my car silver and but a big black 8 on each side which was to memorialize my age in the annuals of our snapshot history. Pop drove me up town and I filled out the entry form at the American Legion which was the headquarters for the many events that would take place during the week.  I started to sweat just thinking of the rush of flying down the raceway at perhaps the breakneck speed of 10 miles an hour – if only my crash helmet would come in time.  

Mom said, “If it doesn’t come in time it's going back – there’s no hills to ride in South Millville after the big race.”

    Boy’s Week arrived with the “Church of Your Choice” Sunday on the schedule.  Monday was the Pet Parade on High Street and the decorated bike races in the city park.  Tuesday was the big race day.  And then as chance would have it – at 4:26 PM on race day as I sat in my car practicing my “driver wave”, which I would salute the crowd with after winning my “heat”  – IT CAME!  The big brown truck pulled up and I had my crash helmet – timing is everything and little did I know how this great white plastic hat would come in so handy in just an hour.

    Pop loaded “The Stratton Avenue Flash” in his truck.  Mom rode in the cab and I in the back holding down my car.   When we arrived the excitement on the street was electric – as boys from all over town oiled their axles and polished the hubcap that many had nailed to the front of their entry.  I sauntered around the “pits”, a vacant lot next to Kane’s Scrap metal business – trying to look cool and competitive.

    After several heats of older boys that were accompanied by whoops and groans the announcer called – All eight year old's report to the starting line.  I squeezed into my car and donned my white helmet – I was the only one to have an official Sears American Soapbox Derby Model.  It was too tight and made my head hurt – but I imagined I looked like a debonair Daytona driver, ready to do the 500.  I had two other opponents and I had to admit my car looked great alongside of the others – my grandpa was indeed an improvising craftsman.  

    We all waited for the whistle.  And then I was off – albeit at a very slow start as Buck Street hill wasn't much of a hill.   In seconds, I was in the lead by five car lengths – but then I started to drift to the right.  Against the rule that one must stay in the marked lane.  -  Yikes something was very wrong.  I turned the steering wheel left, than right and nothing happened.  I was gaining speed every second – but I wasn’t heading to the finish line I was zooming directly toward the curb.   As it does many times in moments of disaster, everything seemed to slow down as I literally flew up a driveway and became airborne.  My Stratton Flash landed on it's side as I slid on the sidewalk chin first and finally came to rest.  Good grief I had just crashed – this never happened.  And to make matters worse - I was stuck in the car and my chin was bleeding as the “officials” and Pop raced up to make sure I was OK!
    My chin was just a scrape but my pride was seriously wounded as I heard the snickering of the older boys at the top of the hill.   Pop pried me from the vehicle which was no worse for its slide of death.   The race "official" said, “Not his fault, look Herb there's much too much play in the steering!  Let’s give it another try.”  I said, “NO WAY – I AM NEVER RIDING THAT THING AGAIN!”  But after pop brushed me off he tighten the and the Legion First Aid Squad applied a giant Band-Aid to my chin – with assurances that the car was alright now, I raced again.  

    By the end of the night I came in with the second best time and got a ribbon which entitled me to the Boy's Week Winner's Bus Trip to see a Phillies game and a free hotdog

But most of all, more than winning I learned two lessons that night as we bought the Flash home to be buried in our garage never to race again.  
    First - even crash helmets don’t keep you from crashing and more important - no matter what, always check your steering before each race – lessons that lasted a life time.

THE CHALLENGE

For the first time in literally years I indulged in a piece of chocolate cream pie at a new buffet restaurant and with the first bite of that smooth, silky desert I was back in the High School Cafeteria…

As seniors we had a choice by seniority – to eat the daily lunch prepared by the ever watchful Miss Miskelly, the matron of the school kitchen or we could cross the street to the smokey, jukebox rocking land of sodas and subs - the Orange and Blue Hub. 

I preferred the cafeteria and its warm, friendly, sweat sock ambiance.  A gymnasium converted from basketball court to dining room each day.  It was polished wood, dark and dank.  But much less crowded than the raucous Hub where one had to do battle to get fed before the bell rang the lunch period over.

The “great challenge” as it would come to be known, all started before school began that year.  Bub and I were “tooling around” in his dad’s 54 Buick chatting about our hopes and fears of what would soon be our last year at MHS (hopefully).  We passed the Hub which we knew was girding its staff for the onslaught that would come the next day.  

Bub said, “Ah the good ole Hub - I love their subs…why I could eat one of them every day this school year and still not be tired of them!”  

I replied immediatley – “Wanna Bet?” 

“Yah I betcha,” he yelled over the constant clank of the old Buick’s aging values.  “But what’s going to be your part of this bet?”  

And thus he threw down the gauntlet.  I pondered a brief moment and blurted – “I’ll eat 180 pieces of cafeteria chocolate cream pie!”  And that started a challenge that would last the school year.

The cafeteria nor the Hub's menus never changed.  

Each cafeteria meal each day was written in stone.  Get the brown heavy plastic tray.  Slid it.  Grab the grub.  Chicken  crockett's on Monday…ham slice on Tuesday…mystery meat on Wednesday…sloppy joe's Thursday and lastly Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks ended each week.  At the end of the line were the deserts.  The healthy stuff the closest – apples, pears and bananas.  And the real deserts – apple pie, peach pie and my daily “treat”  the chocolate cream pie with the saw-dust Gram Cracker crust were a bit of a reach over the counter.  

Miss M stood guard observing each student’s tray.  She many time pushed the apples…”Why not take a piece of fruit, remember an apple a day…”  I always responded “no thanks and grabbed the pie as she gave me a scowl that parents use when you don’t eat your broccoli.

And so the year rolled by  The seasons changed.  The games we played came indoors.  But my challenge remained unchanged.  

By Christmas vacation Bub had downed at least a ton of lunch meat covered in shredded lettuce laced in heavy oil and hot peppers.  And as for me – I don’t even want to go there - my cardiologist may be reading this – I am sure that chocolate cream pie must top the list as one his best friends.

And then in the last week of April the inevitable happened – as I moved down the line on that fateful Friday there was only one piece of chocolate cream left…this is not possible - my cloyingly sweet pie choice was not the favorite of most students – too sweet!  I inched closer to the prize and then a dopey freshman grabbed the last piece – OH NO!  I had had 143 pieces in a row – I couldn't let this kid beat me with the finish line so near.  

Bub would never have this problem for if the Hub ran out of subs at lunch he could just go after school and get one for a snack before dinner.  As for me there was no after school chance for the cafeteria food – unless it was in the big dumpster!

I paid for the certified nutritionally sound lunch and followed the kid to a table full of other freshman boys.  He sat and then noticed me.  He looked scared that he had somehow broken one of our high school pecking order caste rules and “offended” a Senior like me.

I said firmly, “I need your pie!”  He responded with the typical frosh response – “What?”  

“I need that piece of pie,”  I dug in my pocket for some change.  

He spoke again – “Why?”  “Because it’s the last piece and I … never mind.  I just have to have it…!  I'll give you 40 cents for it.”

Now many years later this same freshman would wind up as a day trader on Wall Street and he already showed promise for his future craft as he was known as a “math shark” in algebra I class.  A glint showed in his eyes…one that many would see years hence as he liquidated an asset…“Humm…very interesting,” was his only reply.  

I upped the anter – “65 cents!” 

He just smiled the smile of one whose knows he has the upper hand and waited.  

“OK A BUCK – But that’s my last offer!” I whined.

“And if I would rather eat it myself…?”  he let that threat just hang there.  

I immediately snarled in his face – “If you don’t take the buck you will be eating it with a broke n arm!!!”  

This future financier already how to the art of the deal.  He pushed the pie toward me – “A dollar and a half!!!”   I dug deep and reluctantly gave him the dough for the desert. 

 And after 180 school straight days passed I had ingested 180 pieces of chocolate cream pie - a record that is still on the books of cafeteria lore. 

As for Bub – he got an upset stomach near the end, missed a day of school and lost our bet by a single foot-long.

QUID AGIS MANE!

    “Quid agis mane?”   (Loosely translated - "How ya doin.") our Latin teacher uttered every morning to start the class.  That phrase still makes me shutter...

     Latin, why in the world do we have to learn Latin? A “dead” language and especially deceased at 8:10 on Monday morning in that strange little MHS classroom with Dr. Ruth Munser.  A room so small there was no place to hide.  Latin 101, I had been at it for a week and at this point not sure if I could master it - even if I were to become a Roman Catholic! 

    
     She continued, (with that slight remnant of a German accent…I wondered why she didn’t teach that living language, instead of being stuck with a language nobody wanted to learn) – “Class please open to page 22 and…now this was a point of no return.  She was going to call on someone to stand and translate the first paragraph into our native tongue – Milvillian Anglo.  

Now Millvillian was a language that to the ear sounded like a South Carolinian twang mix with the drawn out diphthongs Philadelphia patois and it didn’t particularly lend itself to Latin.  But we tried.  And all of us feared having to translate in front of our peers of pain...trying not to think of the horrors of being called on first still makes me sweat and wishing to be invisible

     “Mr. Iszard”.  She always used our last names. “Will you translate the first paragraph”?  (How did she know I didn’t study over the weekend?  But she always knew who wasn’t prepared.)

 I blurted “I am sorry Dr. Munser, but I broke my glasses and won’t be able to read today.  Gads I don’t even wear glasses and I pulled a last resort excuse much too early in the year – this was a costly mistake I would learn later when it really counted.  “Oh, so sorry to hear that…Mr. Iszard.”  The she trumped my trump card.  But then let's do this - you won’t need your glasses to reiterate the point of the text - please conjugate the verb “cross - as in to cross the Rubicon" - for the class will you?  

     Nailed me again!

     And now I faced the consequences for not reading those few pages – a task in those days seemed akin to climbing Mt. Everest.  I stumbled through the task with just one whispered prompt on the last one from a gal pal next to me. 

     Dr. Ruth Munser, doctor of philosophy and tougher than any gladiator – never needed a sword to bring down the mighty and the pompous - just one cold stare.  “You may be seated" and I was dismissed as she called on Dave the Brain to read the paragraph.  (He would graduate Cum Laude and in later life write prescriptions for a living in Latin so his surgical patients would never know just what they were taking “once a day by mouth.") 

     Oh, how I wish that was all I had to worry about today wehn I can't sleep and conjugate the one verb I remember instead of sheep... when I whisper in my mind  - amō…amās… amat… amāmus… amatis… amant – and after repeating it several time the worry that woke me draft away into the darkness for now and I drift off ad sumnun.

THE CHEF

Sometimes when I am making a dinner (well putting a frozen entre' in the microwave) I think about dining when I was growing up…And then I am back on Stratton Avenue in our warm kitchen and Nanny is making dinner once again…

Nanny is working the stove like a masetro and it’s an hour before Pop  and Mom come home for supper.  How many meals did she make in her lifetime?  Thousands! And never, ever complained.  She was not only the cook but the bottle washer too most of the time as my mother worked a long day at the Armstrong Cork Glass factory and came home tired.  My grandmother always said,  “Rest Margaret, you worked hard today,” as they cleared the table. 

This was a modest working man's home – no dining room here.  We ate supper, played cards, did homework and most other things not involved with the TV at our kitchen table.  It was the center of my universe for many years.  

Nanny, Pop, Mom and me.

Nanny made the ordinary seem tastier for a growing boy – a major part of her culinary craft.   But there are several dishes I refuse to order or eat now because of my diet growing up!    

One of these is SOS as the former Navy guys in town called it. 

 Nanny called it “Dried Beef Gravy” … A more refined way of softening the reality that we were having another “inexpensive” single dish dinner.  Just the thought of that reddish dried beef swimming in that white stuff makes me sweat.  For one thing it always looked (and tasted) like the paste in those big jars we used in grade school.  Even today when I see others eat it I start to get a gnawing desire to make a construction paper collage.  

Another item I now refuse is "awful balls" - my name for Brussels Spouts and the only vegetable I was forced to eat many times to a  gag reflex.

A mainstay dish for us was “Meat Cakes” – one of my favorites.  

Now meat cakes were hamburgers without the bun.  But oh so much more delicious when served with fried potato paddys  - left over mashed potatoes from Sunday’s more elegant 3 PM dinner.

Bathed in ketchup, the ever ready seasoning of choice, which made everything taste better in my view. I put it on everything except cereal and chicken – my meat cakes were definitely a treat that were tops of Nanny’s daily faire.  I always asked for more and she would cut one of hers in half.  I never realized until much later how many times mom or she would have sacrificed some of their meal to make sure I was well fed.

And so it went -  Monday’s meat cakes.  Tuesday’s dried beef.  Wednesday’s hot dogs and baked beans.  Thursday’s spaghetti.  Friday’s fried in a pan salmon cakes – we always had fish on Friday, even though we were not Catholic – but Nanny said it couldn’t hurt.  

Saturday was “eat out night”!  We would have French fries and a beef barbecue sandwich or a giant oily sub from George and Mary’s a few blocks away – Indeed a treat! 

And of course Sunday’s was special for  “Sunday Dinner” not supper as the rest of the meals were labeled.  Turkey and ham was a delicacy saved for holidays – our Sunday staple was baked chicken, mashed taters and green beans.  

Nanny’s weekly menu never changed – she could shop for it at the A&P blindfolded.  And we never expected a new surprise dish either – it was just the way it was.  My grandmother was not one to try a Ladies Home Journal recipe experiment.

I have eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the world – The Palm in DC.  Daniels in New York and even the Franklinville Inn in South Jersey (all on the top 100 restaurants list in the USA) – but nothing ever compared to one of my grandmother’s sweet dinners.  
Always made with love and eaten with delight by us all. 

I know now that these meals were never, never taken for granted by the adults at the table.   They were children of the Great Depression.  Putting food on the table was a mission for them.  And they saw to it that I was never hungry once – as they went to bed hungry more than once when my age.  

I am blessed today because of them – in every way.

So, tonight I am making SOS with a side of awful balls – and will make a toast to Nanny the Gran Prix Master Chef of Stratton Avenue. 

THE MALL OF MALLS

Most of my memories that float to the surface are from my early childhood – but every once in a while a delicious one pops up – that happened today while ordering Christmas gifts on-line.  I’ll never forget my first visit to a mall…and it wasn't near home.  Millville would not see a “mall” for a decade to come; in 1965 the only Mall I knew was on the Pall Mall pack! 

This adventure started when I began dating a “North Jersey” girl in college from a foreign land called Teaneck NJ.  Now this could be a suburb of Paris for all I knew because it was indeed over the big bridge from South Jersey, as they say.

Nancy invited me to come north for the weekend and go Christmas shopping at the malls on Route 4.  Being game just to be with her I immediately packed a small bag.  (Now until this invite shopping for me meant helping my Mom carry groceries from the A&P.   I would soon learn the true meaning of the term “shopping.”

We arrive in Teaneck on Friday evening – a town that didn’t look much different than Millville – except the homes were much closer together.  I could have fit three backyards here in my back yard.  This trip not only marked my mall introduction, but it was also a meet the parent’s occasion that made me sweat a bit.  Joe and Connie greeted us at their door with hugs.  And after we settled in and to my surprise Joe offered me a vodka martini – now this was so different from my rustic experience to date.  And it was just the beginning of the eye openers that were to come.  I would learn just how different North and South Jersey were and more than just 100 miles apart.

Saturday morn we went for bagels.  Bagel?  What’s a bagel I asked (really feeling like a bumpkin)?   Nan laughed and said, they Jewish and you are going to love them! 

When we entered Cohen’s Bagel shop I was taken aback.  It was filled wall to wall with customers.  Nan urged me to take a number!   “A number of what?” I replied now feeling really dumb.  She explained that’s how they knew who to wait on.  I was astounded.  In Millvile two ahead of me would be a crowd and I now had number 56 as they called 37.  Millville bakery folks always knew me – they needed no little paper numbers.  Life was crowded here for sure.

After bagels, lox and cream cheese – which I had to admit were very good but would take some getting used to, we left for the malls  a few miles away.  I have never seen so many cars in my life.

Route 4 was a thoroughfare girded on both sides by enormous parking lots surrounding warehouse size department stores – all the big names I had read about, Macy’s, Bamberger’s, Lord & Taylors – all familiar  except the one we pulled into – Alexander’s ! 

Now for a real surprise in the 500 car parking lot there was not a single open space. 

Cars slowly stalked behind shoppers leaving with their bags and pounced on their parking space as soon as it was vacated - as if it were a stake in a silver mine.  We cruised up and down row after row for ten minutes.  This was ridiculous in my opinion as I had never searched for a parking spot on High Street or even Landis Avenue ever – even at Christmas time.  Finally Nancy nosed into a spot just beating another shopper who tossed us a single digit salute.  Whew! Was all I could muster?

We entered the largest array of goods I had ever seen in one place beside browsing the Sear catalog. The jewelry counter alone was bigger than our W.T. Grants at home which was as close to a department store as Millville could get.  

Nancy was on a mission and knew exactly where she wanted to go.  I would need a map to shop here so I just gawked.  The place was packed and there was a din of mingled voices and sounds of ringing cash registers and an occasional PA announcement – “Would the owner of a Blue Ford…your lights are on…etc.

We repeated this routine from store to store, up one side of Route 4 and back – it took most of the day.  I carried bags and mumbled from time to time – Gee, Wow, and Duh.  Nancy bought stuff. 

On the drive home Sunday I pledged to myself to start reading the New York Times and Gentleman’s Quarterly in our college library – determined that I was going to be much more sophisticated and better dressed from that day forth.