FIRST LOVE

Another Valentine's Day and even at my age - I still think of love...and what it is...what it could be...what it could have been...There are many kinds of love in our lives. As we grow they grow with us.  I loved my new bike.  My mom.  The first snow of the year…But there is one love that most of us can never forget or really get over – that’s our first romantic love

Our eyes met in the school cafeteria line for the first time.  And wow!  There are thousands of words and songs about it – poets pondered it in sonnets.  But when it happens for the first time – there are no words that explain it.  But I believe you just know it.  Indeed “Zing went the strings” of my innocent heart.  I could feel myself blush.  We got our food and she sat with her friends; me with mine.  She laughed.  I tried not to look.  But I failed.  For the whole lunch period I stared at my green plate of beige institutional food.  It got cold and I tossed it. Somehow my appetite was replaced that day with that sweet taste of first love.  The next morning the sky was actually bluer – nothing but blue skies did I see.  The songs on the radio all meant more.  I walked the hall hoping to see her again.  And then there she was, opening her locker.  Locker 214 – I still remember it all these years.  She’s wearing a grey skirt, a blue oxford blouse and penny loafers with argyle knee socks.  Gads I was madly in love! A loud voice in my mind repeated and repeated her name…KATHY.

After two days of smiles. I had the courage to say “hi”.  The next day I walked her to her freshman math class.  And I was late to my Latin II torture.  I got a warning that lateness is not tolerated.  And...So it goes.   Walking leads to carrying her books to holding hands to yearning to touch and stay together as long as we can each day.  We date.  The movies on Friday night’s.  We hold hands the whole show while Jerry and Dean carry on – but we both are not really watching – we are in our own movie.  The Saturday dance at the YMCA.  The quick kiss goodnight at her door knowing that her dad was probably listening on the other side.  And our school days proceeded into months.  The intervals between seeing each other felt so long. What to buy her for Christmas…picking the right Valentine…and then it’s summer and we say goodbye on the steps of our last school day - which until now was an occasion we both used to look forward to – but not now.   We would be miles apart and only connected by telephone.  I lay on the cool kitchen floor and talked to her for hours  – I wonder what did we have to say ?  But the words flowed – mostly silly words.  We laughed and constantly tested our “love”.  She goes away with her parents on vacation – when will she ever return?  Did she meet someone at the shore?  Moments of doubt creep into our conversations.  Do you still like me?  Would you like to date other people?  Do you…would you…?  All the games everyone plays when learning the steps of the dance of love.  And then for no good reason – it ended. I went to college.

 For some of us first love just ends as fast as it started.  These first loves are fragile.  A word can start unraveling it.  But for some of my classmates this puppy love would last beyond school and mature to marriage, children, homes and lives well-lived or at least until the first divorce!  I look back and still wonder, after all these years, why did my first love end?  I guess it was my yearning to test what lay beyond the borders of my small town – to taste a bigger world.

Did I gain that much?  I will never know – but I do now know that it was paid for with my innocence that left me saying goodbye to one of my best friends - ever.  

 First love...she made my heart sing...and honestly, when I think of her...she still does!

THE FIRST SNOW

It’s snowing in New Jersey but for me in central Florida the only snow we see comes from “snow” machines at Disney World when the Magic Kingdom is decked for Christmas.  I think of snow…

...I’m 8 years old and it’s January 1951.  I was back in school only two weeks from one of the best times of the kid year – Christmas vacation – and that was what it was called, get over it.  And now another true hallmark day was coming without the aid of the Weather Channel – not as great as Christmas, but near to it.  A snow day!  The TV weatherman predicted a light dusting which many times turned into 2 feet of the wet stuff.  I had my hopes that the first snow day off from school would be tomorrow.  But Mom made me go to bed at the regular time – bad sign because if the snow was certain I would be able to stay up late.  At least to nine thirty.  And so I was vigilant at my bedroom window waiting and waiting and then –  I saw a flake, then another.  I yell IT SNOWING! and mom came into my bedroom and said  “Go to sleep!”  I do because I couldn’t for a white tomorrow.  It was going to be a very busy day.

Now this is a strange thing.  I loved going to school – but getting a free day off for me and I believe most kids was like having a reprieve from a sentence to Alcatraz.  Oh the joy.  I awoke bright and early.  And WMVB radio litany of closing was heard in our kitchen.  I rushed and sat at the table listening for the big to be announced.  “Millville schools are closed”, the announcer made it official and I hurried a breakfast of toast and jam – couldn't wait for eggs to fry  this AM.  

 I dressed for a polar expedition in a snowsuit obeying an order from my grandmother.  A snow suit – yikes - the winter bane of every kid my age.  I wasn’t a little kid anymore but I had to wear it or I’d be sentenced to watching from a window as the other kids on my street had snowball fights.  In reality it was only a heavy coat with a hood and matching heavy padded bib pants that always were too tight.  And my grandmother made me wear my grandfather’s black rubber galoshes over a pair of his rough and itchy wool hunting socks or “your feet will freeze”, she warned.  I felt like an Eskimo in rubber “Frankenstein feet”.  They had metal clasps that looked me in their protection from the dreaded elements.  You could never get into them fast enough as this was a two hand job of opening, hooking, folding and closing.   I was finally ready and out I went into the freezing tundra.  (Can’t you imagine the UGG’s generation wearing these rubber boots?)  

I was finally outdoors and  to the joy of a day off from reading and writing and rith-ma-tic to the world of snowmen and snow forts and getting hit in the face with a “soaped” snow ball – which was illegal in my peer group.  But most times not heeded by my cousin (the bully) Bruce who lived to toss one.  I started my day by running and sliding down Stratton Avenue on my new Flexible Flyer sled.  (I recently saw  one for sale on EBay for $750 bucks just like the one  I sold mine for $5 bucks at a yard sale).  This was a machine very foreign to South Jersey.  There are absolutely zero big hills to slide down – but I had to try it anyhow.  And I got that over with. This device never did fulfill its purpose as promoted on TV and  it would be soon relegated to the garage to become a cobwebbed artifact.  But at the time a sled was a must have in my circle of pals. Next came the fashioning of a snowman that ended up not looking much like Frosty - except for my Pop's corn cob pipe. ( Some snows are better for snowman building - this snow I remember was too light and fluffy to make a good one.)  I retreated back in only for a quick lunch – hot pea soup, the kind only grandmothers made on snow days, the kind with milk and chunks of potatoes floating in it.  I washed it down with a cup of tea that warmed me up.  And with red cheeks in full flush of the season I ventured out again to an afternoon of melting fun.  

My snow day fades.  Oh those indeed were the days when a thing so simple as some frozen rain could make such joy in a kid's heart – but those days are gone now - for years before I moved south I  rarely saw  kids taking time out from their video games or cell phones to go out in the snow and play.  So, I made a silent pledge to myself - If I ever get to see real snow again I am going out and "play" in it or at least take a nice long walk through it even though I no longer have a pair of galoshes!

KNOCK AT THE DOOR

I received a Christmas delivery today of an online purchase - no knock at the door, it was just waiting on my doormat until I discovered it had arrived.  This made me think about the days growing up when people came to our door all the time…

…and I'm back in Millville and there’s a knock on our backdoor.  This was always exciting for me, a preschooler home with grandmother Ethel with one year until kindergarten.  My grandmother took off her homemaid apron - she never answered the door with it on. I guess she didn’t want to be mistaken for our maid, which wasn't very probable in our home.  I was always excited to see who was there.  This time it was a person who scared me everytime he made his monthly visit.  My grandmother didn’t like him much either.  She called him a “peddler”?  And that he was.  He was the “pin peddler” whose case was filled with buttons, straight pins (which seems to be always getting lost) and thread of every color I could think of.  I can’t imagine how he could make a decent living now - but then in our factory workers' town most of the ladies of the house sew, mended and adapted our clothes to make them last.  My grandmother looked at me with her “oh no” rolling of her eyes.  And I remember why she thought this salesman was a pest - talked too much and kept her from our chores.  Ten minutes later after hearing his pitch again, she did need some black thread, paid him 25 cents and was back in her apron.  I have to admit I like standing behind her  and watching as the old man showed her his newest stuff.

These were the days long before one could buy something and never utter a word to another living soul.  The milkman left milk at our door every few days and knocked to collect his money once a week.  He worked for our local dairy and also supplied us with butter, cream and cheese.  Another visiter was the Bond Bread man - who came once a week (or more if Nanny requested something special).  He had a large tray filled with donuts and pies which hung on one arm.  Nanny always asked me what I would like even though I always said, “Cinnamon Buns”!  I can still taste their freshness, matter of fact many time they were still warm from baking.  And I have yet to taste any since those days as good as they were - fresh, really sticky and covered with  pecans.  

And there were more visitors I look forward to seeing.  The mailman actually came to our door and sometimes personally handed her a package.  The meter readers all took time out to chat with us…and so it was in the days when we talked with people. 

Technology today in just seven decades for me has made many things easier and instant - but as it connected us to the world it has also made us so far apart.  The electronic age is a very lonely time for many - when there is rarely a knock at the door. 

A Birthday Wish

The years roll by and I check off another birthday, number 79 - on my mental calendar. So far, so good as they say! We  mark our lives with birthdays and holidays and those days are the best days of our lives and stay in our minds like no other days of a long ago. 

When I was young I couldn’t wait to have another birthday – kids are always looking forward to something: a two wheeler; the first Scout uniform; drivers training.  But at my age we say please "slow down"!  My growing up days turned into months and the years flowed like fine wine from nature's cafafe - much too quickly.  

My first birthday?  I certainly can’t remember that one but I can see imagine it from a few fading pictures - me in a high chair with a pointed paper party hat and cake icing all over my face.  This the standard infant birthday pose.   (Most of us all have a box or drawer pictures that illustrate the days we were too young to remember – many times we just think we remember them.)  In another photo I am dressed like a sailor – my father was a medic in the Pacific landing on the beach at Iwo Jima the day I was born – one of the bloodiest days of that awful war.  When he was stationed in Hawaii he sent me a genuine Hawaiian shirt and sandals for my second birthday – my one and only present from him as my mother and he were divorced as soon as he returned from the service.  He never sent me a birthday present after that.  Which now as a GrandPa Cal I believe was his great loss not mine.

And so the years passed... as the photo collection grew, my journey now in Kodacolor. When I reached 10 years I finally got that long awaited Cub Scout Pen Knife that I had yearned for until Mom decided I was  old enough to have a dangerous weapon.  I could now whittle large chunks into small chunks an earn a Cub Scout badge (which I now know the main purpose was to sell badges along with all the other scouting add-ons. The Boy Scouts was one of the great marketing ploys in history so far). 

And the gifts, rather than the days, become the milestones of  my memories; their cost grew as I did:  

12 years = Schwinn Black Beauty, the best bike ever.  

14 = A blue bowling ball with “Cal” engraved on it.              

16 = A Remington electric razor with the caveat from Nanny, “Calvin, you are getting there”!  (She said that every year on my birthday and his too)

And in a wink my special days were being marked with crayoned signs made with love by my kids.  Balloons greeted me when I came home from work on my big day – daughter Lisa made me a lopsided pottery bowl-ashtray-container something one year in art class which I still keep change in on my bureau; son Jon created a homemade card – Roses are Red…Violets are Blue…You’re still young at 32.  Barb, the oldest, would make her first cake from scratch. It was blue inside and out. The number of candles didn’t fit on top of her cake so I blew out one for each decade. 

Time gobbled up my days.  Grandmother Ethel always said that the older I would get the faster the years will go by.  She was so right.  It seems like just yesterday we all were together around the kitchen table; Pop, Nanny and Mom as I with just a few candles to extinguish and wishes for simpler things.  They sang and then we laughed…there was always lots of laughing in my home growing up.  Like my years my folks are all gone now.  No more counting the years for them.  Yes Nanny as you always said – you finally got there after all.  

My birthday wish this year, after the one candle was out on my favorite restaurant's annual free cupcake - I wish as last year, that I could have just one more birthday with them all...just once more... and that I would have another cupcake...next year.

THAT NU-CAR SMELL

It’s mid-October 1954 and I can’t wait for this year’s new cars to be delivered for 1955.  Pop Pop Herb and I always went to see their debut.  Mori Motors had trumpeted their arrival for weeks in the Millville Daily Republican paper.  On TV almost every commercial did the same.  II can still hear Dinah Shore singing it in my head now...

See the USA in your Chevrolet

America is asking you to call

Drive your Chevrolet through the USA

America's the greatest land of all

So make a date today to see the USA...And see it in your Chevrolet...

And Pop and I  will be there first in line to see one - this is almost as good as Christmas, well maybe not - but for an October week night it beats watching TV.  Oh boy, the new Chevy's. My upper lip started  to sweat just thinking about one.  I knew those babies were in town delivered in the dead of night so nobody would get a peek at these chrome behemoths of the American by-ways and hi-ways.

The Mori showroom had Bon Ami covering its windows for over a week so no auto devotee could see inside before the official premiere.  But it was time.  We got in my grandfather’s black, overly big ‘49 Buick and drove to the dealership.  As we drove I reviewed in my mind the recognized “pecking order” of cars - Cadillac the best, Buick next, Olds & Pontiac, less luxury but still special and then the common man's chariot - the Chevy - all built by one great company that made our number #1 selling gas gulping guzzlers.

There’s a crowd waiting in front of the large showroom windows - OK,  maybe 8 people but...the big door opened and there they were.  The new model Chevy's had arrived. “Wow  - Pop look at those colors!” As a car connoisseur considered the Buick to be very staid, but a bit stodgy.  But the Chevy, the working stiff's steed – they were "sporty".  And the new models were Perfect this year, a blend of dashing but delicate grill work combined with subtle use of chrome trim  - (There were no soaring monumental pointed fins yet - those came in a couple of years - and that would be a banner car year event).   I sat in the two door BelAir - a two tone green and white honey with white walls and deeply inhaled - there is nothing in a male's life (well almost nothing) that makes one drool like the new car smell!  It can't be duplicated, nor can it be explained - it just is.  I start to dream of getting my driver’s license.  But at nine that was going to be awhile.  But dreams are what much of life is made at any age. Tomorrow night we planned to go to Edwards Motors to see the new Pontiac with its Indian Chief hood ornament which leads  the way to adventures – "Now that car always has something different," grandpa said each year. 

These were the days when the car was king for men and boys and they all were different.  Today they all look the same and seem.   I find them fairly boring.  For my grandchildren they have become just a way to get around while texting friends as they are carted from organized play dates or a soccer game. But for me, back then they were hot stuff -  seeing a new model each year renewed my faith in America and kindled my imagination of what many things would be in the future.  

FALLING LEAVES

      

  My grandfather always raked leaves on the first weekend in October every year when our small front lawn was covered in many varities and colors - and this year, 1953 wasn’t different.   I was “volunteered” to help by my mom.  And each year I asked – “Pop why do we rake leaves when they all will blow away?”  He would chuckle whenever I asked this kind of  question which I know now as a grandfather myself are so funny.  He answered, “Because someone else should not have to do our work.” My grandfather was right again, and as I grew he taught me many lessons about responsibility.  (A lesson which few kids (and adults) seem to have not learned from anyone.)

            And so, we raked.  There were many more leaves than could ever come from the few trees in our year – I knew they had blown from other yards and this made me sure we should just let ours go with the wind.   I pulled my rake faster.  Soon we had gathered a great mound at the curb – a pile that just needed my yearly jumping into.  I rolled in them and tossed leaves above my head, forgetting my task for a moment as Pop watched and shook his head.  Laying on my back he agreed to cover me with a leafy blanket – but with his usual warning, “Don’t you ever do this alone…a truck ran over a boy in a pile of leaves once and squashed him!”  “I won’t Pop,” I replied as I wondered if it hurt a lot to be squashed?

In my younger days we didn’t have big plastic lawn bags like today, and we could burn our leaves at the curb (which was permitted before it was decided that leaf smoke was a danger to humanity).  After the lawn was cleared came the fun part of my leaf duty – Pop struck a wood kitchen match,  and soon we had our Autumn Pyre.  Our big pile crackled and hissed and produced smoke that, for me, smelled better than Old Spice. 

There is something about smelling burning leaves that stirs me.  Today I see the end of another year as the days grow shorter and the winds of change blow.  But as a kid the scent ushered in the best time in the “kid-year” – the time for turkey, pumpkin pie and presents was coming. 

My Grandmother Ethel called these days “Indian Summer” (no matter if the temperature was warm or chilly?  I knew she also liked the aroma of burning leaves too that seeped into her kitchen.  She always told me it reminded her of a time long ago, when she was bright, young and colored in red and gold.  

FACTORY LESSONS

Even though I moved away almost 50 years ago I still read about Millville on-line. Yesterday there was an announcement that the Wheaton Glass plant was closing…the lifeblood of the city’s working person…the factory.  And I remembered my first day of hard work in my life….

Wheaton Glass Circa 1962

…My first job was filled with surprises for sure.   I dressed in the standard factory garb – tan khaki pants and white tee shirt.  And had my first pair of ‘work' shoes – hard toed heavy black ones that my dad insisted that I wear that first day.  They made my feet sweat.  Dad worked at the plant in the “Pentagon” as the executive offices were fondly called by the unwashed.  He was a model maker and master craftsman.  He dropped me off at the north gatehouse and I joined the parade of zombies marching to another shift in the steamy heat of summer.  I didn’t recognize any except a couple of my newly graduated friends trudging along.  There wasn’t much conversation and very few smiles.

Entering the vented roofed smokey building the temperature rose from a pleasant 70’s on this June morning to what seemed to be close to what hell feels like.  It had to be 100 degrees – and thus why they called this area of the plant the “hot end.”  But more than the heat the noise was overwhelming.  A constant dissonance;  a droning that I would learn came from the glassblowing machine behemoths as they “blew” molten glass into bottles.  

(Glassblowing bottles bgan with a  journeyman of the craft and a long blowpipe.  Today the glass manufacture is mechanical and involves three furnaces. The first, which contains a crucible of molten glass, is simply referred to as "the furnace". The second is called the "glory hole", and is used to reheat a piece in between steps of working with it. The final furnace is called the "lehr" or "annealer", and is used to slowly cool the glass, over a period of a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the pieces. This keeps the glass from cracking or shattering due to thermal stress. Historically, all three furnaces were contained in one structure, with a set of progressively cooler chambers for each of the three purposes - Wikipedia) Hovering around each machine were was a man soiled in oil and grime who constantly checked gauges and tinkered with the levers and cranks on the machine.  His job was a skill perfected over many years of hard work labor.  I would learn that these men were the “Operators” and held the highest status and union title in the production of the plant.

 I followed the mix of women and men around the machines and made my way between a series of lehrs with their never ending parade of bottles moving slowly toward the “packers”.  When I applied I had been told to report to the office.  This small room of several desks was the only one that had air conditioning – walking in chilled me, but not as much as my “chilly” reception.  I was met by my “foreman” whose demeanor frankly scared the heck out of me. I knew him from the outer world.  His son and I played football together.  But here in the plant he had a totally different personality.  He immediately made it clear that he was the “boss” and not a friend.  In less than 10 seconds I was given my gate pass, signed a injury release form and was told to go to the far end of the packing department and report there to the assistant foreman who was out on the floor.  I met this second in command boss who tersely said, “See this damn mess (a cluttered bunch of cartons, broken pallets and other stuff that I didn’t recognize) move it all down to the other end of the building and sweep up this area. Use that hand truck.  Use that broom.  Mr. Wheaton likes a clean and uncluttered factory.”  And he marched away and my first real work day had begun.  I didn’t mind the job even though it did seem a bit below my skill level – I was a high school graduate and soon to be a college freshman and an anomaly compared to most of the workforce !  I spent a very boring day moving a ton of stuff about 100 yards across the packing house.  Twice the assistant foreman stopped by,  looked, laughed and left without comment.  I guessed I was doing what was required?  As I finished sweeping the area for the fifth time to a pristine concrete shine my work day was suddenly over – and it could not have come quicker, my legs were screaming.  I don’t think I had ever stood on my feet that long in my life. 

Lesson one - there was no “sitting” in this packing house, except for two 10 minute breaks and a half hour lunch.  That night at supper I described my day and my dad’s only remark was, “that’s factory work for ya.”  

I reported to the same assistant foreman the next day.  He looked at me, shook his head and with a bit of sarcasm said, “See that stuff you moved yesterday?  Bring it all back here to where you found it.  And take your time – you have all day to do a good job.”  Good grief, I now got it. My first task in the plant was “busy work”. The sem–boss was making up work for me because they could not just have me standing around getting paid for nothing.  I had to look busy and get paid for doing nothing.  This second day seemed twice as long as the first – but my legs were not so tired at the end.  Plus, I was getting used to the constant noise, dust and heat.  I also learned to relish my lunch break sandwich as I absorbed the bickering of the regulars.  Their standard conversation centered on baseball and escapades of certain wild women/men for the most part.  I would hear variations of these themes for the entire summer.

The next day I was assigned to my real job -  “packing” and learned the task from a gnarled old guy who had been doing this robotic job for 40+ years.  I figured that my first two days were to help me get familiar with the swelter and the sweat.   I stood in one spot on a rubber mat for the next 7 hours. The packing job was not hard to learn.  But there were rarely any breaks in the line.  When one started to pack they did it for two hours without stopping until their official 15 paid rest break - which was 15 minutes off the job.  However the break room was about a 3 minute walk so the actual break was 9 whole minutes.  I did this routine for the next ten weeks.   But more than the work I mastered of a speedy packer who inspected each bottle for flaws - I learned some of the greatest lessons of my life.  

It took me just three days of packing to understand that I had to study hard and graduate from college.  I learned how tough life is without college education and how hard many people in my town worked to put food on the table and give their kids a better life.  And most of all I found that bosses weren’t as bad as I thought they were going to be…after all.