A BUGGY SPRING

The Spring is early this year and flowers are blooming everywhere and then I am sitting in Biology class…50+ years ago.

Miss “Buggy” Ayers is explaining our final project in her warbling tones – Miss Ayers was ancient, nervous and a fixture at Millville High for decades – and dreaded by the college prep students because she was an “old school task master” who gave a lot of homework and really hard quizzes.”  We all believed she was born old.

I was tuned out thinking about the afternoon baseball game at Atlantic City and happy to get out of class early for the bus ride to the shore – Spring fever had its magical hold on me.

I tuned back in…”A  herbarium, plural herbaria is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study.  And this assignment will determine 50% of your FINAL grade…please copy down these requirements:  Each project shall contain a minimum of ten wild flower specimens that you will dry for presentation; you will classify the plants with their scientific names and their  common name for instance – the Rubus argutu is known as the common Sawtooth Blackberry…" and this list of requirements went on for 15 minutes.  

My hair started to hurt.

Buggy finished with, "Lastly I have an arrangement with the Greenwood Press Stationary to carry the required black binders and black sleeves that you MUST purchase, see me if this is a problem,  to present you specimens.  Any questions?”

I had one but didn't ask - What am I doing here!!!!

Buggy was quivering with excitement after explaining this monumental task!  There were no questions just groans from our sophomore class of future biologists.  

Ten specimen’s – I thought this is worse than a term paper.  

This is going to be a real drag and I conjured up the horror of getting poison ivy traipsing in the woods looking for weeds – then an interesting thought hit me; roses were a weeds once too - maybe this would be fun after all?

At the next class Miss A gave us a lesson in pressing and drying blooms and a pamphlet from the Department of Agriculture – “Wild Flora and Fauna of the Garden State”.  

Where would I find ten blooming wild flowers?  

Luckily we had a month to complete the quest.  And so my first botany expedition began on Saturday.

I ventured into the pine woods that began at the end of my street as our street turned into an ancient sandy path.  And not five steps in I found my first wild flower.  Our perception is so tricky.  (One rarely notices something until looking for it and then we discover that it was always there all around us!) 

That day I found five different flowers in full bloom after only walking about 50 yards into the woods.

After several treks I had 20 different Spring flowers in a wide array of colors and I decided to do more than the minimum - matter of fact, being the "artist" that I was touted as, I decided to draw a detail of the flower on an opposite page of the pressed specimen and would add the scientific names of the flower's parts that I found in a dusty tome at the Millville Library.  

I even visited Miss Ayers after school one day to seek her help in identifying a plant that I couldn't find with my research (no google in my day) - she was beside herself that I was asking for help.  Most students avoided her.

I had to admit that I enjoyed this task and handed it in early.  

One of my friends reported that Miss Ayers was showing my flowers to all of her class as an "example of diligent scholarship".  A fact that my friends would not let me forget for several years.

On our last day of class Miss A returned the graded herbariums - but I didn't get mine back.  After class I asked about my grade and for once, I really wanted to keep this assignment thinking it might be good for my art portfolio that I was building for college admissions applications.  

Miss Ayers reported, "Your work was the best I have ever seen and I am sure it will turn up.  Probably was just mixed in with another class when I graded them. 

You received an A+ which is one of the few I have ever given.  Congratulations Calvin."

I was stunned but very pleased to score a guaranteed A in her very tough class.

She said for me to stop by on the last day of school and she would have it for me.  I did but to no avail and resigned myself that it was "lost" forever.

Years afterward chatting at my 10th year reunion with friends Miss Ayers came up to moans of remembered pain and I bemoaned about my lost masterpiece. 

Mary J. then reported the following:

"As you may know Miss Ayers finally retired a few years ago and she advertised in our church bulletin that she had many books she was giving away for free on a Saturday morning at an open house.  I went and found I was the only person there at the time.  Miss Ayers invited me for tea and we sat in her dark, book filled, living room which had stuffed birds everywhere.  As I passed some time with this lonely soul I saw your herbarium on her coffee table. She told me it was one of her best memories from her 49 years of teaching."

(Note:  Miss Ayers died alone several weeks after her open house.)

TO ETHEL WITH LOVE

The last time I drove to Millville I visited Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  I read the carved name on her stone - Ethel May Watson and 1 thought about my grandmother and the good times...

And I couldn't get over the fact that I have no bad memories of my Nanny.

My first memory. . . Nanny in her big black coat hanging white sheets that instantly froze on the lines as she and I would walk and hide between the hard frozen rows. Nanny was very clean.  She "kept house" every week day.

But on Saturdays Nanny and I loved to go downtown. 

We walked sidewalks where everyone knew each other. Nanny showed me off I suspect. She was proud.  After some shopping we would take in an early Saturday movie, and then walk to the "Ladies Lounge" in the Eagles Fraternal  Aerie building and wait for "Pop Pop". 

Usually after what seemed like hours to me, a man would always come, peep out of a small door in the locked entry way and say "Herb will be down in five minutes, he's got a real hot hand Ethel!" (This was repeated by different messengers each week.) The they would disappear behind the locked door labeled "Members Only. " 

Some smoke would escape, some harsh laughter of workingmen relaxing. And sometimes the sound of chips being stacked or coins tumbling into a metal tray below a very illegal machine.

 Nanny was always patient.

We waited. This night there was only one old Life magazine in the waiting room to look at. The next revelers would come and go.  Then eventually, Haley as his brother birds called him would come and drive us home in the big Buick. 

We sometimes would stop at the ice cream pallor off Smith street.  It had wire chairs at small white tables and a jukebox that cost 5 cents.  Attached to the music machine on a shelf above was a miniature bandstand with a lame' curtain which would open when a song played to reveal animated wooden musicians weaving to the melodies.   

Nanny and I would do the 2-step she taught me.  

(This ice cream store was just like the one on the way to Ocean City.  Same white wire furniture.  And always on a trip there with Pop, after a sign from me, Nanny would be afflicted with a serious cough. "Herb, I've got a tickle, " and  he would be compelled to stop as only a drink at this store would cure this. Besides the Soda pop remedy, I would usually add a "novelty" toy from the big glass case filled with balsa wood guilders, rubber knives, wax bottles filled sweet colored liquid and an ice cream cone of course - Nanny was a natural actress.)

But I digress - On occasion, back to the Eagles Lodge.  Once the big guarded door was wide open and we could go that night into a large smoky taproom through for a "Ladies Night".  

My grandmother was not opposed to "having one" as she always told me . (I never saw any effect on her from an adult drink!) She particularly enjoyed a "highball".  I got to taste beer and learned the two - practice the 2-step on these regular Ladies Night. Nanny was a 2-stepper.   It remains today the only dance I really can do.

For a large person Nanny was light on her feet.  We walked a lot.

When I started school Nanny walked with me, first to see that I made it safely, later to make sure I stayed. One time she left me at the kindergarten only to find me home waiting for her when she go home. Walking me more than twice one day was pushing it. She said the dreaded "I'm going to tell your mother when she gets home.  (She rarely did tell. .. but this was important. I had to go to school and stay. And I knew she would tell - so I did go back that day -  and didn't miss another day for years except when I was down with every kid disease then known.  

But staying with Nanny was more fun.

Nanny only went to the eighth grade. She left to work as a "bobbin—girl" at the Millville's mill,  Her family which included eight brothers - needed what she could earn.  Later in life she worked in a sewing factory.  I never thought of her as dumb because of her lack of high school education. She read well, remember what she read, and knew more about book keeping, cooking, sewing, medicine and current events than most. 

She really listened to the news   (I watch television like I listen to elevator music... on the surface. ) Nanny was pretty smart.  My Grandmother had an opinion on most every subject. 

And late in her life she'd repeated her opinions between related facts about the  maladies of old age. Nanny suffered from the generic South Jersey disease "Artherrightis and gall. (And if she actually had all the diseases she thought she had she wouldn't have rnade 60 let alone 83.) 

Nanny had a very strong sense of right and wrong.  And she instilled a true philosophy that has remained important to me for 60 years or so. 

She had a code of common respect for others and self.  And She would quoted "Bible" verses that probably never existed. 

"Man will only know the seasons by the turning of the trees" meant the end was coming if Spring was late or Winter early on any given year. "The seas will claim their own" indicated that the erosion of beach in Ocean City meant the end was coming  also. 1 wondered for years if all Bible verses foretold the coming of the end or just the ones Nanny remembered.

Nanny watched nearly every episode of the soap opera,  Search for Tomorrow for over twenty years !    I didn't miss many either. I used to come home from school for lunch in time to see this daily 15 minutes and the never ending problems of the Tate TV family.   Each episode always ended on a question.  "Will Dr. Bill find happiness?  Tune into Search for Tomorrow...at noon Monday through Fridays...brought to you by DUZ, laundry detergent....(organ music theme up and fade to black)

A real treat for lunch was "homemade" pea soap - warm milk, potatoes, bread and margarine. It always seemed to me to be potato soup with peas, but I didn't argue.  Nanny also made meat cakes, potato cakes, salmon cakes. (In those days a fried "cake" didn't seem like leftovers as it does today. ) My kids would throw  things out before reheating anything. 

Nanny would tie my scarf when I left. She was there when I got home. She was always there .

She watched me I practiced my trumpet (worse then dancing), baseball, a minister in a Christmas play, a snowman in a winter play, a violet in a spring play. Endless innings, quarters, halves. She stood on the sidelines, waited in hospital halls. 

Nanny was my best fan.

Now, mother was there too. But my Mom had to work. in fact, many thought Nanny was my mom and my mom was my sister or my date later on, but that's another story! 

I had two mothers. A day one and an evening one.  Round the clock mother-ing. 

Nanny waved good—bye on my first trip away from home. The patrol boys go to Washington. She pretended that the cedar box souvenir I brought back was just what she needed. I think she knew that once I left, like walking to school, there was no turning back in growing up. 

I got older, so did Nanny. She took a back seat to cars, girls, home runs, colleges, brides, divorce, jobs, operations, moves. But she didn't stop loving me. 

Time skips and Nanny is now "Ethel!

I loved to say "Well Ethel" and she would look at me and say "Now Calvin" in a mock threatening tone. This was our secret code from teens to middle age. It was shorthand for I 'm here, how are you, sorry its been so long, got anything good to eat, got to go soon, bye .

I once appeared on television everyday, five times a day. 4 shows were repeats of the same program. She watched them all. I said "Ethel, if you just watch the first one then you don't have to set your watch by the other repeats. She said, "I like watching them all. . . its like having you in the home again! 

Nanny waited for me to come. I didn't come often enough,

Oh, the power this grandson had. The power to brighten. Just by being.  Power to make her proud, happy. What an undeserved power.

She came to stay with us for the last time. She beamed when she saw me .1 must admit we talked all to seldom toward the end. Like grief. . . failing is something you try to not to see.  Nanny'a wearing out made me angry. If I didn't see her; see Millville...see my friends...1 didn't see me growing older with them.  So I stayed away.

Even when she was sick in the hospital that last time, she seemed happy, smiling, enjoying the attention. She came home for Easter. But returned the next day to the ICU.  After several days not conscious, on her last day I am sure she waited for me... I came and whispered "Ethel you can go now."  She couldn't reply. . . but I believe she heard.  Then quietly, alone she left us that night. 

Hopefully, we shall walk again someday between frozen sheets and I can tell her a simple thank you.  If there is a place for her where conversation is possible...I know she is very happy telling a whole new world about me.. . her grandson Calvin and remembering the good times. . . waiting for us all to come home and visit again.

But for me a big part of  Millville was Nanny.  And Nanny was home. 

THE BACKWARD BOY

A posting on Facebook stirred my grey cells again.   My Junior High gym teacher as they were called in 1958 had passed away.  

And then I was back in Millville…

My mother just opened a very “official” letter which I saw was from the “Millville Board of Education”.  It was still August and school was very much far away from my mind – this letter put it right in front of me. 

After she read it twice she looks at me with her “serious” look on.  “Calvin this letter requires me to buy one of those things for you so you can take gym. You must have one to take gym class in Jr. High.”

One of those things?  I couldn’t fathom what she was referring to?

 

I had new high top black Keds, new and saved for that first class.  Mom bought me a Millville orange and blue gym bag from Garton’s Sport Center and put them in with a pair of white wool socks and the require orange and blue trunks she bought there too.  And she added a new white T-shirt I had gotten for Christmas from Aunt Martha, but never worn.

I thought I was all set – but now I needed “one of those things.”

On Saturday after mom did her usual tour of High Street bringing her collected money for the “shoe club” she ran at the factory and a couple of other stops where she paid a merchant for something she had bought “on the cuff” as she said.  We headed to Bob Garton’s combination sporting goods and toy store for this mystery item.  My mom marched to the rear of the store where Mr. Garton usually sat next to his massive cash register. 

“Hi Marge,” he said.   My mother, dispensing with the usual pleasantries jumped to the chase.  As her cheeks flushed she whispered, “Bob, Calvin needs one of those things for gym class which is prescribed by the school.”

I could see that Mr. Garton wasn’t all that comfortable talking about this item either.  He cleared his throat.  Looked a bit sheepish at me then back to mom.

“Right, of course…we have some over here in the back corner.”

We followed him to the deepest recesses of his kid emporium to a shelf of small boxes.  I was finally going to know what “one of those things” was.

Mr. Garton then asked mom, “What size is he?”

Now mom really blushed.  “Bob how would I know”? she blurted.

“His waist Margaret, his waist size”, he responded in a low whisper.

She told him and he put the small box in a paper bag.  She paid $2.95 for the item and with a very hot face on she ushered me out of the store before I even had a chance to peruse the toy aisles.

I still had no idea what mom just purchased for me?

When we got home, mom handed me the mystery parcel and said, “I guess you should go in your bedroom and try this own – in case it doesn’t fit?”

Wow I thought this is indeed a mysterious thing – but it must be important to merit an official letter and embarrassed adults just to buy it.  In the confines of my bedroom I examined the package.  The box the item came in displayed only the statement “Spalding Athletic Supporter – Size Medium”.  Until that day I thought an "athletic supporter" was a football fan.

I removed the it and found it to be a a “Jock”.  Every guy talked about getting one of these – it was a rite of passage, but I had never actually had one to try on.

 

I was very excited to it as I stepped out of my jeans and pulled it up over my jockey shorts – and for the first time getting the meaning of the label of my undershorts.

It fit – I think?  And it felt very “supportive” - even over my shorts.

But the hardest hurdle just occurred to me.  I was going to have to don this rig in front of all the guys in my gym class – now I blushed for the first time.

The dreaded day arrive far too soon.  Mr. S. (with silver whistle on a lanyard around his neck which he even slept with per rumor) barked his orders before we got started with our first of three days per week of groans, moans and sweat.  

“Listen up here’s the deal – and for both you boys and girls.  Everyone is required to take a shower after gym class – got it, no ands, ifs or buts.” (Yikes I thought = this is going to be even more embarrassing then I had imagined).  

“Yes, even you girls!”  Later one of my gal friends would reveal that the girl’s locker room had four private showers with curtains and I informed her that boys had one open shower with no privacy at all.  Which seemed to be the way of the world for most things in my later life.

Mr. S. dismissed the girls to get ready so he could talk to us guy in private.  “Gentleman, and I use that term loosely, (ha-ha) …it is absolutely necessary that you wear your athletic supporter during every class.  This is a rule for you own protection and the well-being of your future children (ripple of laughter ensues) – Cut that out this is serious gentlemen.  

Do you read me?”

“YES SIR!”, we shouted in unison just like a bunch of recruits at Fort Dix.  

And then we rumbled into the locker room with our trusty gym bags and W.T. Grant special combination locks at the ready.  The chatter as we undressed was obviously from very nervous guys.  Some of the “bigger” guys stripped down as if this was an ordinary activity, oblivious to the “little” guys watching them for a cue about how to be cool with this rite of passage.

Most of the shy ones had installed their “jocks” over their underwear – for modesty sake.  Years later most of these guys would be parading around naked in college hallways without giving it a thought.  But for seventh graders on this first day – most of us were very cautious about exposing our goods to comparison – which all men do their entire lives, no matter how much they deny they do it.

Then the entire locker room quieted.  

A humid stillness permeated the atmosphere that smell vaguely of cheese mixed with Lysol.  All eyes had turned to Alden.  The poor guy had pulled up his new (x-tra small) Spalding supporter over his very large plaid boxers – and had it on with the pouch on his butt!

Then it happened.  

One small giggle led to another and another until a chorus of 30+ guys rang the rafters of the old gymnasium.  And no one could stop laughing.  

Mr. S. dashed into the locker room to find out what was causing this ruckus – he spotted Alden standing there with staring down at his misaligned gear with a very confused look – now teacher and student had red faces beaming. 

Mr. S immediately order us out of the room – except Alden who he kept for a much need lesson in the proper application of the required protective gear. 

Decades later at school reunions Alden was always introduced as “the backward boy of Bacon School” 

Some things we just never live down...and never forget.

THE REUNION - Part 2

There's the old Diner — closed after all these years. I'll never forget how I learned one of life's hard lessons there one Saturday night.

It all started when I finally had the nerve to ask Vickie, (a very dark, exotic, mysterious, and mature fourteen year old) for the last dance at the YMCA Canteen.  Me, in my green and black checked sport coat, narrow tie, student Key Club tie bar, and green argyle socks. She, in a fuzzy tan Orlon dress stretched magnificently in all the right places.

We danced the last slow dance. (I did my famous two step "pump handle" march around the floor of the basement game room turned ballroom with the addition of a red flood light in one corner. Romantic to say the least and the least it was. )         

While we motored another lap with no obvious thought to the actual beat of the song I was wondering do girls really like to dance backwards all the time?

And then I asked the question; "Would you like to go to the Diner?  "Yes", she replied before I got the "er" in diner completely out.

I should have seen the warning signs. Much Too immediate and too eager - red flags I would learn to heed later as I advanced in the rituals of life. 

But this for once positive response threw me off.  I was very used to the reply "NO thanks". This was the first time for a "yes".

Peril ahead.. peril ahead!  But I didn't listen to my internal warning system.  It had been shut down.

My systems had been dulled by the scent of her Avon's Here's My Heart.  And the feel of her in my arms; the fuzziness of Orlon; the latches and straps across her back that must have been holding that wonderfully mature body at attention.  Her being was calling to me like sirens; dangling a much imagined (to date!) potential before my mind's quickly developing labido.  

I was stricken with one of the most deadly of the basic sins - LUST!

The song ended just in time and we climbed the stairs from the basement.  My palms began to sweat. Matter—of—fact, everything containing a pore was running full tilt.

I debonairly held her coat and we walked quickly to the Diner. (She had to be home by 11:45 PM. — since only a Sophomore. ) I had $3 bucks in my pocket.  A small fortune that was bound to cover a snack for both of us.

This was going to be great!

We entered the aluminum and artificial marble lunch car. I helped her with her coat again and presented the yellowed, coffee stained old, plastic covered menu for her perusal.

I tried to become the essential movie lover I had seen many times in living black and white. If I smoked I would have ignited two cigarettes at once and then handed her one. But I didn't smoke. 

Instead, with my deepest "man of the world" voice, I intoned, "Order whatever you desire my dear."

Without missing a beat, she said, "I'll take tonight's  blue plate special dinner."

Gads! screamed my mind as I scanned the menu to calculate the cost of the "Hearty Meatloaf — Fit for the King and Queen of the Road."  It was complete with mashed potatoes, one choice of vegetable, soup of the day, side salad and a small beverage.  

I prayed she wouldn't add a piece of pie.

The waitress finally arrived and I said, "the lady will have the blue plate special. . . She picked a small chocolate milk. The price. $2 .95

"And you sir?"

"I '11 just have a glass of water...guess I'm still full from dinner,"...my voice trailing off.

Vickie, consumed the entire dinner in four spoons full. (I have never since seen anyone eat meatloaf with a spoon.) Her mouth showing a faint moustache of chocolate milk. 

I talked high school small talk about the upcoming big game.  She responded with a comment about each of the senior players.  I wondered how well she "knew" them. 

And then our late supper was over.  I paid the check and left my last nickel as the tip!

(Seven minutes had elapsed on my "date of a lifetime.")

We walked the several blocks to her front door in silence, interrupted only by Vickie's hearty burps of satisfaction that echoed back from the empty street.

We reached her door.   I thought it's now or never as I moved closer for the much hoped for - and well earned - kiss goodnight.

She said, "Goodnight Kiss! I'm not kissing a cheapskate like you. . .1 saw the crummy tip you left that nice waitress." 

And she was gone, slamming the door in my face. 

I had missed the kiss, and much worse, I had missed dinner.  But I learned a great lesson - always watch the way a date eats.  Food, sex, clothes; they are all appetite driven. All signals.  All signs of the real and often hidden self.  (If she carves her steak like a surgeon on the first date, she'll be dissecting you like a frog for the rest of your life. If she eats like a truck driver, you better be able to do your own ironing.)

A horn sounded behind me.   I was back and stopped at a green light right at High and Broad. 

I drove on.  (To Be Continued)

THE REUNION - (Part 1)

Checking In

I love my Cadillac. It took thirty years to get it and I enjoy everything about it. Especially the hood ornament. I love sighting down it at blue haired old ladies doing 24 in a 55 zone.   I love pretending that I have machine guns mounted on my fenders and I blast away.

I've had a lot of cars in the last thirty years. Small ones, big ones, convertibles and one legitimate sportscar.  But I do love this giant, lumbering and loose Sedan 'deVille with leather interior - the best.

I pop in a Wagner Overture and pretend I 'm piloting a fighter plane, then a 747. I pretend a lot - especially on long boring drives.  Then I think about "Ole Yeller".

The 1951 Buick that Bub's dad gave him on his 17th birthday.  Faded, dinged yellow with a black top and 13 years old, but still in great shape. Try that with a Toyota of today sometime...I think - but I digress!

Each Friday night we would "cruise. Our route was always the same...down "The Great White Way" (our joke — for this really small town main drag).  Down High.  Left on Broad and another left and then we'd do it all over again.

Just the two of us. Two high school Juniors looking
for some "action" - HA!  Knowing in our hearts that it would never happened here and on this street. And both not sure just what we would do if we found some.

Bub, (his real name was Lewis) resided on a ring of Jupiter for most of his life, only occasionally coming to grips with the ways of earth - but he was a math shark.  Me? I liked the Red planet. We were both too damn smart, (as my grandmother Ethel would say).

When our names were called in class or a pretty girl crossed the street, we would return to the local frequency, usually a beat late. 

Bub was homely to say the least. He had the worst hair I have ever seen. It always looked like he just took a shower - it looked wet. He was our  quarterback on and off the field. I was a tackle.  I hated being a tackle as this was not a position of glory and scores - it was the position of the unheralded grunts of the game.

Bub and I communicated on a level much like Zen masters. We used a combination of ad-libbed one liners to weave a never ending stream of unconsciousness. 

"There's Woody's old Chevy.  

Bub mumbles, "Wood's Mom would!"
We both laugh our sinister, knowing laugh.

I say, "Yeah, your mom would too, wouldn't she." 

We laugh harder.

"Your Mommmmm," 
Bub says dragging out the last sound as long as he could before passing out.

And right in the middle of our childish levity a car down the empty street toward us and we pass - it's Pam and a car full of girls!  We blow horns in unison.

We can hear them screaming over the din of our motors and through closed windows.  I start to scream "HEY GIRLS" -  Bub shushes me, "CAL BE COOL" he orders as he does a two wheeled u-turn that one of the Chitwood Hell Drivers would have been proud of for sure.

We follow our prey.  But we aren't catching up.  I yell, "Can't this donkey go any faster????"  Bub squeeks, "NOPE...35 is about as fast as she'll go."

We think they turned.  We turn.  We have lost them - which is the story of our young predatory lives...I just can't believe it...

...a horn blows and I'm back from my reverie and on the Interstate.   Its pouring rain. The letter with the ticket for my Millville Memorial High School - 30th Reunion falls from the visor. It promises a "Country Funfest"! The form letter is from our class of '62 Vice President.  As Ronnie as Class President disappeared about twenty years ago.

I tune the radio.  The forecast - the rainiest weekend of the year is at hand.

I say to myself, "Frankly my dear, what the hell can I do this entire weekend in good ole Millville - rain or shine?"

And then I see the "Hol  y City of America" sign and it is still missing one of the L's  - missing since somebody pried it off on Halloween of 68.  

Maybe I check in the motel and cruise the White Way one more time...and finally be home.  

  (To Be Continued)

OUR FAMILY'S LEGENDS (CONTINUED)

I always loved Nanny’s memories about times  when she was a girl…

The Millers were a poor and big family.  I have no idea what great grandfather John Miller did but I know he was a laborer and he was big and I took after him – according to my grandmother…He and I were just big.

One Christmas eve when all of my family were in bed waiting for Santa, Nanny and I were watching the midnight mass service on TV.  Nanny married a Catholic and my mother was christened Catholic – but Nanny nor she ever practice that faith – we were Methodists (mainly because we could walk to  the church).

I asked, “Nanny, what was Christmas like when you were growing up kid?”  She pause to gather her thoughts and then I knew she was back in Vineland.

“Well Calvin we were poor, we didn’t have a lot, but we got along.  My mother was French and my father was a German, Abot and Miller - so we had a little of both ways of celebrating and they made it the best  they could. 

On Christmas Eve I will always remember that father decorated the whole house in evergreen boughs that he cut from the nearby woods.  And I can still smell  them.  He made garlands of holly too.  Every doorway was an arch of green.  

My oldest brother’Charlie's job was to take a couple of the younger brothers and cut down our tree.  Old Tannenbaum - which my father remember and sung from the old country.  On Christmas eve we carefully fixed candles to the branches – no twinkling lights for us.  It's a wonder we never burned the place down.

We used tinsel saved from last year – not the plastic kind of today, it was metal and had a heavy feel.  Mother insisted that we put each strand on one by one – she always commented that some folks just toss hands full and that’s not the way to trim a tree.

   

We didn’t have a fireplace in our little company house, we  had a big wood stove in the kitchen that heated the whole  place.  We hung our socks on nails that night and hoped Santa would find them.  My mother assured us that he would come even though we didn’t have a chimney.

 

The next morning we would find oranges, apples and nuts in our socks – and one year we all got a big piece of  chocolate which was a wonderful. Toys were not in our budget many years but each Christmas I remember I would get a “new” dress – I was the lucky one as the boys, who ages were like steps, only had hand-me-downs.  We did look like a “ragtag” bunch going to school.  

My mother made my dresses – so “new” was an exaggeration.  Mostly mother would cut down one of her “old” ones and make a small one for me.  I had two dresses for the year for school and my brothers had one school shirt.  Mother washed our clothes every night when we went to bed.  (We all slept in one bedroom crowded with cots) and she hung them near the stove to dry for morning – sometimes I would put on a dress that was frozen!

 

But we never complained – we didn’t know there was anything better.  We just loved being.  Those were different times…so different than today.  For me, 82 Christmases have come and gone.  And I wonder where the time went so fast - I’m getting there Calvin…I’m getting there.

And now Calvin – it is time for our beds so Santa can come!”

That Christmas was her last visit and later that summer Ethel May joined her brothers who all went before her and I wonder if she has to drag a shovel tied to a rope so she doesn't get lost on a walk in the clouds.

UNCLE SAM AND OTHER FAMILY LEGENDS

My nextdoor neighbor passed away suddenly.  She was there one day, alive and always cheerful; now her home is dark.  The light that glowed from her windows is gone and with that darkness comes a cold feeling of loneliness.  She reminded me so much of my grandmother - they both no matter what their malady - always had a smile…

And then I think of my Ethel and her stories that I loved to hear growing up.

Ethel May Miller.  The ninth, last and youngest child of John and Nellie – 8 brothers and one little girl.  Charlie, Roy, Tom, Sam, Owen and three others boys who died at birth and were never named.

Nanny grew up in Vineland in the center of South Jersey and it was easy on a summer night to get her started on an “Old Time” story as I called her reminiscing.

Born in 1907 she would live through many changes that quickly came with the new century.  

It was hard for me to visualize that her main street the now busy Landis Avenue, named after the developer of the area, was just a dirt, rutted, country road when she was a toddler. 

Nanny chuckled.  “I was told by my brothers as soon as I could walk I was always wandering away from our porch.  So mother charged them to “watch baby Ethel.  This they hated to do as it took away from their play.  So Sam, the orneriest of all the boys took a rope and tied an old broken shovel blade to it and the other end he wrapped around me.  When I decided to take a stroll I would leave a trail behind me in the dirt – and one of brothers would track me and bring me back to our front door.  I guess it worked, because I never got lost…and lived all these years.”

Nanny would then be quiet for awhile and I knew she was thinking about how her big brothers were now her “old brothers” and that they each had some health issues like she did - except Sam who was still the black sheep – many times arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and other misdemeanors.  

He rarely held a job his life or held his family together.  When he would visit her which was rare, Nanny knew he need a few bucks.  

She would roll her eyes, open her big purse as he left and admonish him – “Samuel, this is the last time…and I mean it!”

Unlike my grandmother, I thought his tipsy visits were a hoot.  He usually only stayed a few minutes. Regaled us with some tall tales of an exploit or a close escape and then he called a cab and disappeared for another few years.

One afternoon Nanny open the Daily Republican newspaper that Kirby our paperboy hurled in a different spot each day, always narrowly missing a window or the roof.  

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed.  She shook her head and went back to her ironing (she seemed to be always pressing stuff).

I picked up the paper and scanned the front page - a short article below the fold read: “MAN FOUND IN DRYER – The owners of the City LaundroMat called police to report that they had found a man sleeping in their large clothes dryer this morning.  A patrolman was dispatched and reported that he found an individual know to him as one Samuel Miller, address unknown.  Mr. Miller was arrested for several charges and transported to the Cumberland County Hospital for evaluation before being returned to the city lockup…”

My grandmother's loan had apparently been put to use and for certain was now gone.

Uncle Sam continued his antics for years afterward to my Nanny’s constant worry and my delight.

And he outlived all of his brother’s until only he and Nanny remained.  She said alcohol was running through his veins.  “Sam was pickled - you couldn't kill Sam with a stick!” 

TO BE CONTINUED