SCHOOL CLOTHES

At this time of year – when the days start to shorten and there is a change in the air.  Less humidity and a search for a light blanket.  I always think of school with a tinge of sadness that those wonderful days which we tried to make last ended much much too soon.

And then I’m back in 1956.

Labor day was just two weeks away and I would be back.  And to be honest I missed school.  I loved school.  One night at supper Mom announced it was time for our annual “school clothes day” on High Street and we would have this adventure this coming Saturday. 

I got out the latest Sears & Roebucks catalog and perused the clothing section for some ideas on what was the cool styles this fall  (I ventured here only once a year for research, after many visits to the toy and sporting goods sections.)  To be “in fashion” pants had to have a small belt in the back that did nothing and shirts had to be with buttoned-downed collars.  I was ready to shop.

First stop was Freeman’s Shoes.  According to my mother school shoes had to be “sensible” which meant to her no Flag Flyers or loafers.  She always reminded me I had flat feet and needed “support.”  Support meant creepy looking tie up oxfords that workmen wore.  After Mother instructed Fred, the great shoe salesman in her parameters he showed my some Buster Brown’s that looked like official Girl Scout foot ware.  But there was no arguing.  I lied and said I “liked” the least cloddy looking pair and Fred escorted me to the box-like machine at the back of the aisle of countless shoes.  It was a fluoroscope and wa la  –  My clodhoppers fit.

Next we visited Jules Men and Boys.  And Jules immediately went into his high gear sales routine.  “Margaret, I’ve got the newest thing for Calvin, let me show you.”  Why I wasn’t a pertinent part of this discussion was always a mystery to me?   He laid out a bunch of shirts on the counter and uttered one word – “Madras”, making it sound as mysterious as its namesake in far off India.  To me the shirts just looked like plaid.  My mother made a small a-huh noise as if she knew what he was talking about.  I think Jules realized we both weren’t too impressed so he cranked up his pitch, “They are guaranteed to bleed on the first washing!”  “Hummmm”, my mother offered a bit dubiously.  (She had been wary of fabrics that “ran” in the washer her whole life, now this was a benefit?)

“Guaranteed!, Jules repeated.

“What do you think,” my mother asked me?  According to my research Madras was really in this sartorial season.  I replied, “I really like them.”  And she bought me 3, one in each color.  Next we needed a new pair of chinos.  (Jeans were never worn to school in my day)  Jules escorted us to the “chubby” rack.  I got shoes that I hated and shirts that bled – but this was the unkindest cut of all.  I would be in that size section until high school when, as grandmother Ethel noted, my “baby-fat” just melted away one day.

My school clothes shopping day was done after a trip to W.T. Grant’s for some new Fruit of the Loom underwear and white socks.  My mother had to be certain that if I were ever in a serious accident I would be wearing clean and non-holey underwear.  I was new on the inside my whole growing up life.

That night while we watched Lawrence Welk I tried everything on and modeled during the commercials.  I received kudos and assurances that I would be well dressed on my first day this year.

As for me, I couldn’t wait to see the shirt with the small buttons on the collar come out of the washing machine.

A SUMMER DAY

Dog days – that’s what grandmother Ethel called the days of August; hot, sticky, humid dog days.  I wondered just what that meant.  Did dogs have days?  Did my Spotty suffer because of the heat.  I knew he panted a lot that’s for sure.  Nanny said dogs pant to sweat.  I wondered?

When August rolled around I always started to wish that school would begin.  I waited the whole year for summer but when it came I did about everything I could do by around the 4^th of July.  

So the daily task -  how to fill my day?

Well, I thought, I could play war with Wesley across the street.  We would sit for hours in the sand.  (There were patches of white sand everywhere in south Millville)  And play with the 100 green rubber World War II army figures that I got for Christmas.  The set including a couple of plastic tanks, some tan tents and a bunch of other instruments of death!  I had painted many of my “men” with wounds of red nail polish – a garish color that my mom gave me because she hated it.

Wesley would attack my mud fortifications and I would beat off the Germans.  (My army set came with a like number of gray guys we called the Germans) Then my turn and I would attack his mud caves.   The Americans always prevailed. 

This activity got old real fast.  Imagination just goes so far and then fades.

What could I do now?  I know!  Ride my bike around the block and pretend I was a race car driver.  This two got old after about four or five revolutions down Stratton Avenue and back.

 

My day dragged on.  And then I got the best idea of the summer.  I am going to build a tree-house!

I asked my Pop Pop when he came home for lunch if I could use some of the wood from his pile of various boards that he seemed to be always collecting behind our big garage.  He said yes – but be careful of the rusty nails.  

Now rusty nails were an anathema in my world – one misstep was known to pierce the toughest sneaker and cause a dreaded case of lock-jaw – according to my grandmother who related tales of poor unwary kids who met untimely ends because they “did not watch where they stepped…especially by Herb's ugly woodpile!”

And so that afternoon I began and worked throughout the day.  

Wesley and I drew a rough “blueprint” of what I knew would become a masterpiece of  kid craftsmanship.  After much engineering discussion and false starts we began to build a clapboard and crooked box like room against the big ancient pine tree in my backyard.  (Editors Note: For practical reasons it was decided that the building team didn’t have the skills to build a tree house in the tree – both were afraid of heights – so it was to be a house by a tree.)

My plan called for a first floor  10 X 6.5 foot "house" with a hatch in the roof which would gain access to the “second story” observation deck.  This deck would be perfect to spy on girl neighbors and guard against attacks from imagined Indian tribes.

We toiled the rest of the day.

When Pop came home from work he took a look – he just smiled and asked if I needed some help?  

After supper he installed a door and a window.  Helped me with the hinges for the roof escape hatch and shingled the plywood roof.  We decimate his wood pile to my grandmother’s glee.   

With Pop’s help I now had Cal’s Clubhouse (the painted sign also read "For Members Only")   I spent the rest of August deciding just what the purpose of this “club” would to be.  And I spent many hours lying on my shack's roof, cap gun in hand,  surveying the neighborhood for invading armies.

Most of all I was pleased to report to Nanny Ethel that, to date, I had not stepped on a single rusty nail.

OLE RILE

RIP in peace Coach

  

Sad news today that a former high school teacher and my football coach passed away – and memories took me to MHS and days I thought would never end.

Bob Riley – known to Thunderbolt linemen as Old Rile was an enigma for sure.  A former Villanova Football All-American, noted body-builder and math wizard.  He was the logo picture for the Charles Atlas ads in the men’s magazines.  But hidden in that barrel chest was the heart of a poet.

One would never guess that he was math teacher from his appearance or manner.  He smiled too much to be mathematically inclined!  But he was and he loved figuring out equations as much as figuring a new defense against Vineland on Turkey Day.

I have expunged the memories of most of my year with him in Algebra II.  (The human brain’s survival instincts has a way of forgetting extreme pain and remembering just the good times)  I do recall I sat in his class fearing the inevitable embarrassment of being called on to make the trek of shame to the blackboard to solve an equation.  This torture usually ended with Rile whispering, “X times 2 over 9 plus B to the third power…you can go back to your seat now Cal.”  Even when I would call David P the “math shark” I still couldn’t remember how this stuff worked.

Rile’s work went far beyond his classroom.

He loved coaching football, wearing short short orange and blue gym shorts, raggedy sweatshirt and high-top cleats to football practice when it was around 30 degrees.

He loved writing, directing, producing, casting, lighting, staging his annual Senior Variety show which was a couple of hours of parodies about current events, TV and the movies.  (I played Mitch Miller, Happy the Clown and did my magic act in the 1962 edition)

He loved making his annual batch of “Riley’s Rotten Root Beer” (that was indeed one of the worst concoctions ever concocted) and he reveled in his secret formula that created an effervescence that could propel a bottle cap into orbit if the drinker wasn’t careful.

But most of all, I think he loved telling a good joke that came from his mental card file of hundreds of old ones discarded by Milton Berele and Henny Youngman.  He and I would play “yeah, but did you hear the one about…” for hours.  And he got laughs without ever telling a dirty joke.

He loved coming to our class reunions and getting a bit misty-eyed about what was and what might have been.

He loved doing a double jack-knife off the high board at the Holly City Swim Club to oohs and ahs of his aquatic pals.

But most of all Robert Riley loved sharing his life with young people. 

And his child-like wonder and enthusiasm rubbed off on his students and players and they loved their lives too - that was his reward.

Rest in peace my friend and mentor.  

I think I can hear you now…”Hey GOD, did you ever hear the one about the …  

THE LAST PITCH

Watching the 2015 All-Star game I felt a sense of pride to see one of Millville’s own Mike Trout, become the most valuable player of the game, the second year in a row – and that got me to think about my own love of baseball…

And then I was in my bedroom on Stratton Avenue putting on my Babe Ruth League uniform again.

As a kid there’s nothing more thrilling than being picked to play on a team (yes in those days one had to try out and “make” the team, unlike today when everyone gets to play, no matter what their skills) and getting that first real baseball uniform was a big part of the thrill.

Putting it on before each game was, for me, like the Matador’s ritual with the traje de luces (suit of lights).  I used to start an hour before the game just to make sure I got it right.  I tried to emulated the pros I would see on the few games that were televised in my day.  Today most pro players don’t worry too much about their pants or knickers (as they should be called) – they wear them touching the ground and in my baseball purest opinion they look awful – and hats with the flat brims?  Don’t get me started on that.

Anyhow…the ritual began after putting on the very uncomfortable, but required protective cup! The next step was to roll on the elastic garters – then the cotton under socks - then the stirrups, mine where lime green.  The next step was to turn the knickers inside out and step into them.  Slide them up over the socks and stirrups.  Roll the garters down and when the pants where pulled they made a nice fold at the knee – the way they were designed to be worn.  

I guarantee there is only two players in the entire major league’s that do this today.  Ty Cobb or Connie Mack would never condone a player to play on their team who did not know how to fix his pants.  

I donned the hot and scratchy wool shirt with the Millville National Bank by the Clock logo emblazoned on the front and my number 3 on the back (which I always requested in honor of the Babe, my hero).  Finally I stood in front of the mirror, tucked in my shirt, tugged on my belt and was satisfied that I looked like a baseball player.

I rode my bike to the field an hour ahead of game time for batting practice.  A sentimental trip as this was the last game of the season and the last game of Babe Ruth ball career – gads I was getting old!  And the whole season came down to this last game.  The Bank versus Coombs Dairy for the championship.

Brad my South Millville buddy was the opposing pitcher.  Off the field we were best friends but on this day we were serious enemies.  Brad was over six feet tall, lean as a bean poll.  And he had a wicked curve ball for a kid.  Matter of fact he had a bunch of pitches his dad Bucky had taught him.  He was a formidable opponent for this last game.

The game turned out to be a classic pitcher’s duel.  I batted clean-up and had one of the 2 hits Brad had allowed so far.  Our pitcher was doing great until the sixth inning when Coombs scored a run on a passed ball.  

As we entered the bottom of the seventh (at our age we only played seven innings) you could cut the tension with a butter knife.  The fans were very quiet.  Even my mother and grandmother who came to every game were frozen in place. And as fate would have it I came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded with Bankers.  

Sweat was pouring from everywhere.  Brad knew I was a good fastball hitter – but he also knew that I had trouble with the curve.  He grinned and threw a ball that took a minute and a half to reach the plate.  I watched it right into the catcher’s mitt.  Strike one! Called the hump.  Brad threw another pitch, it looked like it was straight for my head.  I backed off but it broke right over the plate.  Strike two!   That one really fooled me.  Brad’s grin turned to a sneer.  I hated that sneer.

 I took off my hat and wiped my brow as our third base coach called time out and waved for me to come down the line for a chat.  He put his arm on my shoulder and drew me close.  Brad watched and I’m sure he thought - a suicide bunt with two outs…NEVER...But what was the strategy?  He knew I was a good hitter and had a bunch of big homers that season.  But he didn't look too worried.

Coach whispered, “Cal, you’re on your own.”  That was it?  That was the plan???? 

Now I was really drenched.  Why me? was all I could really think to myself as I walked back to the plate trying to look as confident as possible.  I tapped the plate.  This was it.  My big chance to be hero or…bum.

Brad glared as our eyes met.  He did a double wind up and threw a side arm roundhouse change up sinking curve ball.  And just like Casey I missed it by about two feet and almost fell over.  And the game and the season was over.  

No storybook ending for me.  No trophy.  No picture in the Daily.

As the Dairy boys hooted and carried Brad off the field I had to look my teammates in the eye as we gathered up the bats and our gloves.  A couple of them patted me on the back.  My mom hugged me and went to her car.  But no one spoke a word.  And soon in the dwindling evening light I was still on the bench and the field was empty and it was time for me to go.

I peddled back home and went right to bed.  

I have learned over the years that life is rarely like the movies or a good book or the way we wished it would turn out.  Sometimes we win and sometimes, no matter how hard we try - we loose.

And guaranteed happy endings are why we write stories.  

BOY WITH A HORN

After a year of renting my golden horn a friend of my mom, who was in the antique business, gave me a silver cornet.  One that he attested had actually been used in the John Phillip Sousa Marine Band.  He was sure because it belonged to his dad who played it under the baton of the great march king.

This should have given me the motivation to succeed.  But after a year I was still just blatting through my lessons.

My grandmother enforced my half hour of practice before I could go out and play routine each afternoon.  Most times I would sit and just blow random notes occasionally turning a page in my lesson book in case she was watching.  I don't think my grandmother ever knew this scam - she never mentioned it, but then again, she was very cagey about me when I strayed from the straight and narrow.

The Bacon Elementary School band "played in and out" the students as they marched by grade to their weekly assembly, which usually entailed a long oration from our principal Mrs. McCorristin and a grainy movie about hygiene or which country exports tin. Principal Edith M. prowled the stage like a lioness alerting us, in her high warbling voice, to the dangers of running in the hall or disobeying our AAA Patrol Boys on the corners.

We usually gave the fidgeting audience a new number each week - I scammed this too.

Most times I just sat there with the horn to my mouth and pretended to play.  This was for two reasons.  One I was afraid I would make a mistake.  And two I was sure I would make a mistake and hit a sour note - therefore, I didn't hit any.  Every once in awhile the first trumpeter - a burly 8th grader would look over from his prime seat and say, "Hey Iszard give us a hand here, won't ja?"  I would blush and then continue faking it.

One day my mother informed me that it was time I moved up and took lessons off the number one music teacher in town.  The ancient Mr. Leski, retired big band professional.  I guess she thought this might spark my musical enthusiasm ?

My first lesson with him was so different. After brief introductions which focused on the fact that I had been "playing" for over a year, we began the $2 dollar torture. For one thing he didn't use a song book - he wrote out all of the music on small music sheets.  He gave me one and asked that I toot a "test" for him.  I will never forget trying to play "Home Sweet Home" in 3/4 time.

"NO...NO...NO, he wailed!  Timing my boy, it's all about timing"!

"You must put into you head these phrases; he wrote below the notes on my music.  GET IT - for half notes, SAN FRANSICO for quarter notes.  This will help you hold the notes the proper time for which they are written.  Here's how you should think 'Home Sweet Home' when you play the notes think:   Get it, get it, get it, San Francisco get it get it.

Get It?"

No I didn't get it.  But for the next two years I filled my repertoire, not with old standards, but with an array of musical mnemonics in hopes that I would someday gain a smidgen of rhythm = Result, to this day I still have no rhythm; ask my dance partners.

Fact my mom had to face  - I am not musical.

However, by the time I got to 8th grade and was anointed second, first trumpet - I was actually playing along with the band and enjoying it, to some extent - albeit our leader would occasionally caution me to play softer and not drown out the other 20 players.

After 8 years of trumpeting I graduated to Millville Memorial High School and went out for football that fall  - and never touched my horn again.  I limited my music to listening to the radio.

MUSIC LESSONS

For some reason (perhaps from an article in Ladies Home Journal) my mother got the idea that for me to be a well-rounded and cultured person I should play a musical instrument.  I would have rather played baseball but there was no arguing.  She had made up my mind on this.

But what to play was the key question?  One thing for sure a piano was out of the question.

So on a Saturday in the 8^th year of my journey through the vale of tears we took the bus to look at musical instruments at the Millville Music Center.  A center it was – record shop, sheet music, an array of rent to own instruments and in the rear of the small High Street shop were four small windowed rooms a bit bigger than phone booths used for music lessons.

We peered at the window display of instruments.  The sun bounced off the highly polished brass as I scanned the music making machines.  I imagined myself playing each one.  The saxophone – too many keys that had to be hard to play.  The trombone no keys that had to be hard too.  The clarinet looked sinister and not fun.  Ah, the trumpet – that had to be an easy one to play, just three keys. 

I blurted, “I think I would like to play the trumpet!”

We inquired within and the owner indicated that I should take a horn test first before we decide.  We were led to one of the practice rooms and told to wait for the teacher who would finish a lesson in a few moments.  Mom and I sat and listened to what seemed like the wailing of a mortally wounded alley cat from the room next to us.  When the lesson ended I saw it was a classmate of mine toting here new clarinet.

Mr. Mirentz, the Center’s one size fits all music teacher. came in our booth with the gleaming trumpet from the window.  He showed me how to hold it – it was pretty heavy I discovered.  He explained that trumpet players needed “lip” to play this wonderful instrument.  I had a lip and checked that off my list.  But then he added, this “lip” was called the embouchure - some have a good one – some don’t.  Some can make beautiful music and others never do.  He urged me to try to play a note.  I blew as hard as I could – but just a lot of air came out.   “No Cal it’s not about blowing,” he said. “It sort of like humming – you’ve got to make your upper lip buzz into the mouth piece.”  I tried again.  A rasping blatt erupted from the thing. 

“AGAIN!” he ordered. 

I tried again and a ragged, ear piercing sound came out. “He’s a natural!” he exclaimed.  And the die was cast.  My mother beamed with pride with visions of a classical virtuoso dancing in her head. 

Mom signed a rental form which indicated that $5 dollars a week would go to the price of owning this proud and ancient instrument.  She bought a music stand, my beginner's lesson manual and booked me for my first lesson the following Saturday. 

And for the next 7 days I practiced the one note I could muster - as every dog in the neighborhood bayed a duet with me.

A PHRASE IN TIME

(Editors note:  Mr. Bob Stutz a Masonic Brother, historian and good friend sent me this - and I like to share it with you.  These phrases stoke many a Millville Memory for me - sometimes just hearing one makes the gray cells dance - what do they spark for you?)

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We did our best to straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers’ lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Holy Moley! We were “in like Flynn” and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy could not accuse us of being a knucklehead or a nincompoop. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”  We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago:  The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. The very idea! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain or my finger. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks!  You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And Awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.

 It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have our cake and eat it, too!