At the end of A.I. one of the most underrated films ever David is given a chance to spend one day with the mother he bonded with millennia before. It is a one shot deal. It is a very sad scene but a very perfect day. Here is my perfect day, it was one summer afternoon long ago.
Sunshine and eighty degrees out; the sky blue and extending unbroken and cloudless to the horizon. Late August midday warm ocean water surrounds me. I am standing chest deep and a couple hundred feet out from shore watching twisted and watching the wave start to crest behind me. Throwing my arms out so as to form a crucifix I bounce forward and up at a 45 degree angle in hope the wave catches me.
First up, then forward, my body is blasting through the old guys and little kids who are just wading. The wave has caught the bottom of my arms and I am heading fast in for the shoreline. I rush and rush. The ocean here is gritty and has little bits of seaweed, dark green and pocketed with little bubbles of air. Rushing over this gunk I am sucking salt water into my nose and mouth.
When the ride is over I lie for a second on the beach with sand in my trunks. All I want to do is to get back out there and catch another wave. It is mindless fun. The cycle of walking out, watching the waves, tensing up and then heading back to shore in that momentary burst sucks the energy out of you. Vigor evaporates not in little bits but by the handful, by the bucketful. Again, again, into the waves and froth. In my mind I think maybe there will be a bigger and better wave or maybe not but I keep going out until I feel limp and pulverized.
Eventually I drag my tired waterlogged ass up to the towel. My fingers are like prunes wrinkled and unnaturally white. Lying on the blanket I close my eyes but the sun still beats its way through my eyelids especially when I am lying on my back. Turn over, turn over again. This is the old days, screw any worries about skin cancer I am decades away from forty. Hell, maybe the suntan lotion (no we are not talking sunscreen) has an SPF of 4.
Eventually the sand in my swim suit is bothersome enough that combined with the sun’s intensity I decide to walk up to that aqua green snack place that says "Steaks, Fries and Soda". On each end of the take out counter is a huge red circle made of metal and painted with that weird enamel paint. The red ball in cursive says Coca Cola.
I take out a wet soggy one dollar bill out of my pocket and order a large Coke, lots of ice. I walk around the backside of the snack stand head to the city booth at the end of the street. The comfort station sits at that point where the road meets the beach. Balancing the soda on top of the valve for the urinal I take a leak and then head back out to my towel.
Resting on your elbows you scan the beach from here for any of the regulars. Maybe Captain America is out lying on her towel. She is called Captain America by every guy on the beach because of her swimsuit. The whole thing is red and white stripes but the bra part is covered with stars.
If Captain American is out on the beach the lifeguards won't be worth a damn. She has this habit of lying face down and unhooking her top so you can see most of the side of her breasts. These 20 year old college boys that they hire as life guards will spend most of their time watching to see if she shifts on her blanket just enough to give them a thrill. The Titanic could be sinking a hundred yards off the beach and they wouldn’t see it.
Even if the Captain isn't here it is a good day. The water is warm and the waves are high but manageable. Some days the reality of a good bodysurfing run outweighs the chance to look at an exposed hooter, no really.
Another couple of rounds of body surfing and the day will be done. One last dip to rinse off the caked on sand and then I put my Ho Chi Minhs on and head off the beach. Even with flip-flops, on a day like this the sand will creep between the sandal and my foot and burn the heck out of my sole. Youch, youch double ouch as I run for the end of the sidewalk.
With any luck my hair is a nano degree lighter, my tan a shade or two darker. I am hungry. I don't eat at the steak place at the beach it is too expensive and the cheese steaks are on rolls that are too small. Nayh, I walk a block or two up from the beach and grab a slice of pizza. It is local pizza joint owned by a couple of guys with a few stores up and down the beach. Good tomato pie is the solution for body surfing hungry. Another coke and I wolf down the pizza so fast I burn the living shit out of my mouth. To this day I think pieces of my soft palate were lost from too many slices of too hot pizza.
Back to the first floor flat, a quick outdoor shower, a shift into jeans and a t-shirt and I am off to the boardwalk. Hey the breeze will be warm but cooling and the smell of salt air will drive any allergies I have away. No matter what might happen up on the boardwalk, today was about the body surfing. Twenty five years from now all I will remember of this day is that one big wave that I rode till it planted my nose in the clammy sand at the edge of the beach. It was the ride that I will measure the rest of the summer and maybe the rest of my life by.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
A Fountain, the Moon and the value of belief
The moon is white and hangs in the second pane from the top of my second floor home office window. Warm this moon is now illuminating the ultimate moment of the young lives of many in my community.
In East Lansing university finals ended today and graduation is tomorrow. The energy these degreed young feel tonight beneath Luna’s milky blanket is something I wish I had. If only for a moment my senses would awake to that electrified sense of a wide open universe. Bug lust and passion and dreams as big as the world are all mixed up and course through their bodies and minds.
So perfect a moment is this night that to slip away and lie in the May grass is an imperative. Wearing t-shirts with comments emblazoned like “I don’t need to pee in a cup to prove I’m on drugs,” they look up at the illuminated chalk colored firmament pledging forever friendships, fidelity to ideals, love or to remember if nothing else. For most only a thin sliver of the ideal will last, but that is life. But life is also this moment and they don't need and don’t deserve to have anything rob them of their dreams not just yet.
As my old geometry teacher used to say “sic itur ad astra” or “thus you shall go to the stars”. It from Virgil and his amazing work the Aeneid. Okay I am fudging this a bit what Mr. Helms actually said was "Ad astra per aspera" which is a bit rougher. It means through difficulties to the stars and is attributed to Seneca the Younger. But as these the young hopefuls lie in the grass tonight having escaped Mom and Aunt Joan waiting back at the Hampton Inn and the questions about what is next and is your place broom clean for key turnover “thus you shall go to the stars” is what is appropriate.
On my night like this, or one right before this night those 31 years ago, I found myself sitting by the fountain in front of the dorm making an apology. It was one I owed so very deeply. Over the years I have tried to draft my feelings about what happened that last term at university in a way that would allow me to work through it but it never comes out right. The best way to describe it is in that old Rolling Stones lyric from Wild Horses,
I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines,
Can make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
To that person now after all of these years I offer my hope that you have reached your stars.
Silence. My silence is at times almost total. My children look at me as if I was catatonic. My wife looks at me as if I am addled.
I haven’t been writing and I haven’t been reading. My community connections are very thin right now. It is my own fault or maybe not completely. Most nights I ache by the time I have the chance to get in front of the computer. Having found some blockage in my heart my doctor now has me on Lipitor. It may be the drugs; my oldest brother had a very adverse reaction. Me, I just have a mild ache that pretty much remains the same. Tomorrow I do a blood draw. Monday should bring some results or maybe Tuesday. I know it is the weekend and processing these things is not really a 24 hour basis kind of activity when a non emergency situation is involved. Still it is hard to get focused and write when you feel like you have been running a 5 K. And yes I once did run a five K so I know what it feels like.
Okay it is not just the aches that have stopped me from writing. There is the computer kafuffle. In our home we have traditionally two desktops and one laptop. The “kids” desktop has now died. Okay intellectually I know I should just migrate over and use my laptop. But well I am old and my vision is not good, not really and the big assed monitors on the one dead and one working machine are scaled to be more easily readable for me. Thus I don’t always go to my laptop as my first choice of computing. Hey those monitors on the desktops are set at about 14 point type. Get over it.
Well anyway my beloved is working on a writing project. It is a complex power point display. It involves photos, text, dancing bears and a soundtrack too. Well the laptop would accept the images from the digital camera but the still working desktop would not. On the other hand the working desktop has the needed publishing software. Thus the two computers are now part of the in-home all media drafting collective. I am writing this now at 11:30 on a Friday night because everyone has gone to bed and one computer is open. Yea me.
Okay I haven’t been totally honest; I did read a Biography of Plato’s Republic by Simon Blackburn. I have to admit I struggled with the Plato’s Republic in college and thus the explanation of my line on Facebook about wishing I had studied more. If I dig out my copy I am sure there will be a bookmarker about a third of the way in and a moisture ring from a beer bottle’s bottom on the cover. Even reading Blackburn’s distillation left me with many moments of glazed eyes but I did get a much better sense of the threads of arguments and how they have been used through the years, by Arab, Judaic and Christian theologians, not to mention as fodder for the careers of Hume and all those other dead philosophers.
Sparked by the Republic book I pulled a short paper of Blackburn’s called Religion and Respect. I am not done with it but there have been some interesting bits. Here is one in particular that caught my eye. Understanding that I may not agree with Blackburn’s ultimate conclusions in his paper I do find some merit in this.
I shall not in this essay dwell on the infirmity of ‘anything goes’ postmodernism.
In the present context, that would be the view that belief is a purely personal matter, and furthermore one that is free from normative control. That is, any state of mind on such subjects is as good as any other, and it is some kind of infringement of a person’s right to suppose otherwise. The bull’s-eye is drawn wherever the arrow of belief lands, and everyone, always, scores the same.
I think this is inconsistent with any proper conception of belief, which essentially requires a contrast between getting something right and failing to do so. Archery where you are allowed to draw the bull’s-eye wherever the arrow lands, is not a sport in which you always score highly. It is an activity in which there is no score at all. But here I can rest on the simple reminder that nobody for a moment believes in this promiscuous equality of belief in everyday life. If high tide is at midday, the tide table that says that it is at midday is better than the one that says it is at six o’clock, and thereby puts you on the rocks.
Id., pp 3-4.
Okay enough of the navel gazing. I did come up with one thought of my own recently. It is simple and I think true. Who I am can be defined by the contents of my iphone. My social circle and business world is defined by the numbers on my contacts list. Who really matters right now is reflected on the recent calls list. The local sunset that is my wallpaper shows the romantic wistful side of me. The music on my ipod app shows I am an old hippie wannabe struggling for some relevance, Nic Jones, the Ramones and the Killers. The locations on my mapping applications mostly ice rinks confirms I am a putative father of at least one child who enjoys athletics. The fact that the rest of my apps break down between liberal media (NYTimes and NPR tuner), children’s games (only the lite read free versions) and mind challengers like SAT word hangman and Dictionaire, show I am a tolerant or permissive parent somewhat frugl trying to keep current and desperate to avoid mental decline caused by my children.
Okay I am done for tonight. Enjoy the weekend.
In East Lansing university finals ended today and graduation is tomorrow. The energy these degreed young feel tonight beneath Luna’s milky blanket is something I wish I had. If only for a moment my senses would awake to that electrified sense of a wide open universe. Bug lust and passion and dreams as big as the world are all mixed up and course through their bodies and minds.
So perfect a moment is this night that to slip away and lie in the May grass is an imperative. Wearing t-shirts with comments emblazoned like “I don’t need to pee in a cup to prove I’m on drugs,” they look up at the illuminated chalk colored firmament pledging forever friendships, fidelity to ideals, love or to remember if nothing else. For most only a thin sliver of the ideal will last, but that is life. But life is also this moment and they don't need and don’t deserve to have anything rob them of their dreams not just yet.
As my old geometry teacher used to say “sic itur ad astra” or “thus you shall go to the stars”. It from Virgil and his amazing work the Aeneid. Okay I am fudging this a bit what Mr. Helms actually said was "Ad astra per aspera" which is a bit rougher. It means through difficulties to the stars and is attributed to Seneca the Younger. But as these the young hopefuls lie in the grass tonight having escaped Mom and Aunt Joan waiting back at the Hampton Inn and the questions about what is next and is your place broom clean for key turnover “thus you shall go to the stars” is what is appropriate.
On my night like this, or one right before this night those 31 years ago, I found myself sitting by the fountain in front of the dorm making an apology. It was one I owed so very deeply. Over the years I have tried to draft my feelings about what happened that last term at university in a way that would allow me to work through it but it never comes out right. The best way to describe it is in that old Rolling Stones lyric from Wild Horses,
I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines,
Can make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
To that person now after all of these years I offer my hope that you have reached your stars.
Silence. My silence is at times almost total. My children look at me as if I was catatonic. My wife looks at me as if I am addled.
I haven’t been writing and I haven’t been reading. My community connections are very thin right now. It is my own fault or maybe not completely. Most nights I ache by the time I have the chance to get in front of the computer. Having found some blockage in my heart my doctor now has me on Lipitor. It may be the drugs; my oldest brother had a very adverse reaction. Me, I just have a mild ache that pretty much remains the same. Tomorrow I do a blood draw. Monday should bring some results or maybe Tuesday. I know it is the weekend and processing these things is not really a 24 hour basis kind of activity when a non emergency situation is involved. Still it is hard to get focused and write when you feel like you have been running a 5 K. And yes I once did run a five K so I know what it feels like.
Okay it is not just the aches that have stopped me from writing. There is the computer kafuffle. In our home we have traditionally two desktops and one laptop. The “kids” desktop has now died. Okay intellectually I know I should just migrate over and use my laptop. But well I am old and my vision is not good, not really and the big assed monitors on the one dead and one working machine are scaled to be more easily readable for me. Thus I don’t always go to my laptop as my first choice of computing. Hey those monitors on the desktops are set at about 14 point type. Get over it.
Well anyway my beloved is working on a writing project. It is a complex power point display. It involves photos, text, dancing bears and a soundtrack too. Well the laptop would accept the images from the digital camera but the still working desktop would not. On the other hand the working desktop has the needed publishing software. Thus the two computers are now part of the in-home all media drafting collective. I am writing this now at 11:30 on a Friday night because everyone has gone to bed and one computer is open. Yea me.
Okay I haven’t been totally honest; I did read a Biography of Plato’s Republic by Simon Blackburn. I have to admit I struggled with the Plato’s Republic in college and thus the explanation of my line on Facebook about wishing I had studied more. If I dig out my copy I am sure there will be a bookmarker about a third of the way in and a moisture ring from a beer bottle’s bottom on the cover. Even reading Blackburn’s distillation left me with many moments of glazed eyes but I did get a much better sense of the threads of arguments and how they have been used through the years, by Arab, Judaic and Christian theologians, not to mention as fodder for the careers of Hume and all those other dead philosophers.
Sparked by the Republic book I pulled a short paper of Blackburn’s called Religion and Respect. I am not done with it but there have been some interesting bits. Here is one in particular that caught my eye. Understanding that I may not agree with Blackburn’s ultimate conclusions in his paper I do find some merit in this.
I shall not in this essay dwell on the infirmity of ‘anything goes’ postmodernism.
In the present context, that would be the view that belief is a purely personal matter, and furthermore one that is free from normative control. That is, any state of mind on such subjects is as good as any other, and it is some kind of infringement of a person’s right to suppose otherwise. The bull’s-eye is drawn wherever the arrow of belief lands, and everyone, always, scores the same.
I think this is inconsistent with any proper conception of belief, which essentially requires a contrast between getting something right and failing to do so. Archery where you are allowed to draw the bull’s-eye wherever the arrow lands, is not a sport in which you always score highly. It is an activity in which there is no score at all. But here I can rest on the simple reminder that nobody for a moment believes in this promiscuous equality of belief in everyday life. If high tide is at midday, the tide table that says that it is at midday is better than the one that says it is at six o’clock, and thereby puts you on the rocks.
Id., pp 3-4.
Okay enough of the navel gazing. I did come up with one thought of my own recently. It is simple and I think true. Who I am can be defined by the contents of my iphone. My social circle and business world is defined by the numbers on my contacts list. Who really matters right now is reflected on the recent calls list. The local sunset that is my wallpaper shows the romantic wistful side of me. The music on my ipod app shows I am an old hippie wannabe struggling for some relevance, Nic Jones, the Ramones and the Killers. The locations on my mapping applications mostly ice rinks confirms I am a putative father of at least one child who enjoys athletics. The fact that the rest of my apps break down between liberal media (NYTimes and NPR tuner), children’s games (only the lite read free versions) and mind challengers like SAT word hangman and Dictionaire, show I am a tolerant or permissive parent somewhat frugl trying to keep current and desperate to avoid mental decline caused by my children.
Okay I am done for tonight. Enjoy the weekend.
Friday, April 24, 2009
A Sense of the Real Places
It has been a bit of time since I strayed from my intent navel gazing on the mid-1970s. So today is an entertainment interlude.
As I was sitting here at my desk I was thinking of what kind of entertainment I would be taking in over the weekend. What came to mind in this down economy is that a couple of disks from the library might do the trick. Thinking further what would be good to watch with my kids but not involving pabulum or mayhem I thought of the work of Horton Foote.
Both of my boys loved To Kill a Mockingbird. When I though of other deeply character driven movies I found myself thinking about the Trip to Bountiful and also Tender Mercies. I cry pretty much every single time I watch the Trip to Bountiful.
As I thought about these movies I remembered that Horton Foote had died recently. I googled the phrase “an appreciation of…” and I found several articles. At the bottom of this piece is one that seems to get it pretty close to right in terms of my feelings about Mr. Foote’s work.
If you have not seen one or both of these two movies go rent them. Geraldine Page got the best actress nod for Bountiful and Robert Duvall got the best actor award for Tender Mercies. Foote got the best screenplay Oscar for Mercies and was nominated for Bountiful.
Horton Foote, an appreciation
A Playwright For The Common Man.
By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 6, 2009 edition
As a playwright, Horton Foote grappled with the great themes of human existence: love, despair, home, family, identity, redemption. And he often found them all in the lives of people in the little town of Harrison, Texas, the fictional setting for many of his works.
Mr. Foote, who passed on March 4, spent seven decades as a playwright and screenwriter, penning more than 50 plays and films and winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 (for the play "The Young Man From Atlanta"), and Academy Awards in 1962 (for his screen adaptation of the Harper Lee novel "To Kill a Mockingbird") and 1983 (for his original screenplay "Tender Mercies"). He also wrote acclaimed television dramas, including "The Trip to Bountiful," which was later made into a film starring Geraldine Page, who received an Oscar for her role.
Born in Wharton, Texas, Foote skipped college and headed to New York to become an actor. His first play, "Wharton Dance," was produced in 1940. Early in his career a friend, the choreographer Agnes de Mille, urged him to write about his own experiences. Foote eventually produced nine plays centered on Harrison, Texas, which stood in for his hometown. He was in Hartford, Conn., preparing a production of a collection of his plays, "The Orphans' Home Cycle," at the time of his passing.
Across the years Foote's work kept its originality and freshness. "He's a very modern playwright," Michael Wilson, artistic director of the Hartford Stage Company, told this writer during a 2001 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. "Horton has such an authentic and truthful voice. There's not a false bone in his body. I don't think anybody loves theater more than he does, and his love of it keeps intensifying...."
Foote often was present during rehearsals of his plays. "When someone asks a question about his play and Horton answers, it is like being in a room with the oracle," actor Gerald McRaney said in a 2007 Monitor article. "The good fortune of this experience can't be overstated. Actors who rehearsed with Shaw or Wilder or Williams or Shakespeare in the room will know how I feel, but no one else."
Foote was often described as "an American Chekhov," who probed deeply and compassionately into the lives of his characters. In the same Monitor article, actress Elizabeth Ashley called him "one of the greatest American dramatists, because he takes you into the center of the middle of the marrow of that which can only be American."
A leading expert on Foote, Marion Castleberry, a professor of theater arts at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, called Foote's plays "probably the greatest character studies of any American playwright who ever lived. More than anyone else, he's given us a history of America."
Foote's religious beliefs (he was a Christian Scientist) were at the center of his life. "I so earnestly believe that prayer can be helpful and guide you and protect you and inspire you. I mean, I'm in awe," he once told The Christian Science Journal, a monthly magazine published by the Christian Science Church.
But while his plays spoke profoundly about the human condition, they never proselytized. "Well, I often write about nonreligious people," he told the Journal. "And I try to find situations where their sense of humanity is restored or discovered. I think you can be a good person in many ways. And I think you often have to be careful that prayer can seem superficial, because it's a very complicated thing to love your neighbor as yourself."
Asked if the spiritual question "What kind of a man or woman are you?" lay at the heart of his writing, Foote told the Journal:
"I have enormous respect for the human being, because they're asked to take on a lot. And I don't think there's any easy solution. But I think the journey is what you have to finally be satisfied with, but not be afraid of the lessons one has to learn ... it ends up as grace. And you grow, you find a way to continue."
As I was sitting here at my desk I was thinking of what kind of entertainment I would be taking in over the weekend. What came to mind in this down economy is that a couple of disks from the library might do the trick. Thinking further what would be good to watch with my kids but not involving pabulum or mayhem I thought of the work of Horton Foote.
Both of my boys loved To Kill a Mockingbird. When I though of other deeply character driven movies I found myself thinking about the Trip to Bountiful and also Tender Mercies. I cry pretty much every single time I watch the Trip to Bountiful.
As I thought about these movies I remembered that Horton Foote had died recently. I googled the phrase “an appreciation of…” and I found several articles. At the bottom of this piece is one that seems to get it pretty close to right in terms of my feelings about Mr. Foote’s work.
If you have not seen one or both of these two movies go rent them. Geraldine Page got the best actress nod for Bountiful and Robert Duvall got the best actor award for Tender Mercies. Foote got the best screenplay Oscar for Mercies and was nominated for Bountiful.
Horton Foote, an appreciation
A Playwright For The Common Man.
By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 6, 2009 edition
As a playwright, Horton Foote grappled with the great themes of human existence: love, despair, home, family, identity, redemption. And he often found them all in the lives of people in the little town of Harrison, Texas, the fictional setting for many of his works.
Mr. Foote, who passed on March 4, spent seven decades as a playwright and screenwriter, penning more than 50 plays and films and winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1995 (for the play "The Young Man From Atlanta"), and Academy Awards in 1962 (for his screen adaptation of the Harper Lee novel "To Kill a Mockingbird") and 1983 (for his original screenplay "Tender Mercies"). He also wrote acclaimed television dramas, including "The Trip to Bountiful," which was later made into a film starring Geraldine Page, who received an Oscar for her role.
Born in Wharton, Texas, Foote skipped college and headed to New York to become an actor. His first play, "Wharton Dance," was produced in 1940. Early in his career a friend, the choreographer Agnes de Mille, urged him to write about his own experiences. Foote eventually produced nine plays centered on Harrison, Texas, which stood in for his hometown. He was in Hartford, Conn., preparing a production of a collection of his plays, "The Orphans' Home Cycle," at the time of his passing.
Across the years Foote's work kept its originality and freshness. "He's a very modern playwright," Michael Wilson, artistic director of the Hartford Stage Company, told this writer during a 2001 interview with The Christian Science Monitor. "Horton has such an authentic and truthful voice. There's not a false bone in his body. I don't think anybody loves theater more than he does, and his love of it keeps intensifying...."
Foote often was present during rehearsals of his plays. "When someone asks a question about his play and Horton answers, it is like being in a room with the oracle," actor Gerald McRaney said in a 2007 Monitor article. "The good fortune of this experience can't be overstated. Actors who rehearsed with Shaw or Wilder or Williams or Shakespeare in the room will know how I feel, but no one else."
Foote was often described as "an American Chekhov," who probed deeply and compassionately into the lives of his characters. In the same Monitor article, actress Elizabeth Ashley called him "one of the greatest American dramatists, because he takes you into the center of the middle of the marrow of that which can only be American."
A leading expert on Foote, Marion Castleberry, a professor of theater arts at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, called Foote's plays "probably the greatest character studies of any American playwright who ever lived. More than anyone else, he's given us a history of America."
Foote's religious beliefs (he was a Christian Scientist) were at the center of his life. "I so earnestly believe that prayer can be helpful and guide you and protect you and inspire you. I mean, I'm in awe," he once told The Christian Science Journal, a monthly magazine published by the Christian Science Church.
But while his plays spoke profoundly about the human condition, they never proselytized. "Well, I often write about nonreligious people," he told the Journal. "And I try to find situations where their sense of humanity is restored or discovered. I think you can be a good person in many ways. And I think you often have to be careful that prayer can seem superficial, because it's a very complicated thing to love your neighbor as yourself."
Asked if the spiritual question "What kind of a man or woman are you?" lay at the heart of his writing, Foote told the Journal:
"I have enormous respect for the human being, because they're asked to take on a lot. And I don't think there's any easy solution. But I think the journey is what you have to finally be satisfied with, but not be afraid of the lessons one has to learn ... it ends up as grace. And you grow, you find a way to continue."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
We Shall Come Rejoicing
As I always offer in the start of these pieces I am a liar, inveterate and unrepentant. The people I talk about are composites with the exception of Muffy. (I should mention that Muffy was a bit pissed that I used Muffy instead something else as her fictional name. I got the feeling she felt it implied she was a flake. She most assuredly wasn't. C’est la vie). And so with that caveat I offer the following.
Sheaves bringing in the sheaves, we will come rejoicing, bringing in the Sheaves. Let us labor for the master….
Winter nights in New Jersey are cold and wet but not unbearable. On a particular night in February 1974, I wasn't feeling the chill that was in the damp air. Boone's Farm was warming me deep down inside. Cheap assed Mexican weed was giving my night an extra glow. Explaining my flushed feeling accurately all these years later is hard, it was comfortable, peaceful and giddy. At seventeen mixing the inhibition releasing qualities of alcohol with the mellowing parts of pot was just the right thing to do for a spastic, neurotic over wound and cluelesss teen boy, it was totally pacific.
Three of us were walking in that dark damp February night, I think. There might have been a fourth person but I only remember talking to two other people. Our path had started behind the new high school and we were walking through a field. Could have been coming from a basketball game or a maybe pep rally or something else altogether but we were on a mission. Onward march onward was the inner cry.
In trying to remember this incident I first thought the field might have been corn but upon reflection I don't think so. There were furrows and scrub brush about so I think it must have been an asparagus field in fallow. Getting whipped by the long stemmed plants and breaking through the ice in the bottom of the furrows my feet we getting soaked and my arms were stinging but who cared; we was lit. We wuz as the hipsters would say stone cold immaculate.
Walking on we were working our way through all the songs we knew so as to provide us a cadence. Sugar Magnolia had come and gone as had Smoke on the Water. Reaching back for more material I found myself deep into the old Baptist hymns. What I was singing was stuff that I had heard a hundred times or more. When you sat through four hours of church each Sunday you just learned some righteous gospel songs. Some songs you just heard again and again because that little old lady always requested her favorite hymn at every evening service.
Rock of Ages, Amazing Grace and now Bringing in the Sheaves, we (well mostly me with the other two just mouthing along) were hitting all the old Fanny J. Crosby style stuff. We were giggling now almost uncontrollably thinking that the sheaves in question must have been pot. I mean why else would anyone want to work that hard in heaven, right?
Mike and Mary (short for Marion), and I were pushing on. Lest there be any doubt our journey was focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Mike was 18 and at that time in NJ you could buy booze at 18. I have a couple of bucks, Mary had a couple of bucks and Mike had the ID. More Boone’s Farm awaited us.
Why we opted for this overland route eludes me but the promise of more wine made the slogging through the fields seem worth it. Most likely our path was chosen because in this small town if we were seen walking down the paved and thus dry street that was the route to the bar, one or all of our parents would have know where we were headed and why within the half hour. As they say it's a small town and the news travels faster than wheels.
As we walked and sang, well mostly as I sang in my very flat very off key voice, Mary kept commenting that she could not believe that I knew all the words to those songs. But I did. It came easy to me. When she commented about my steel trap memory for lyrics she laughed a laugh I had never heard before. It is a laugh I will never forget.
As hard as it is to describe I can remember that laugh in all its mellifluous detail. It was more than a giggle, but not a belly laugh. It wasn’t condescending, derisive or forced. Mary's laugh was warm and affectionate.
The sound of that laugh took me by surprise and knocked me off my feet. This laugh meant there was a member of the opposite sex who wasn’t being cruel to me. As long as that laugh lasted it meant Mary wasn't pointing out my failings in dress for you must understand that then as now I was the antithesis of stylish. Again the sound of gentleness in that chuckle meant she wasn't making a joke at my expense over one of my faux pas of some sort or another. The sound was pleasant; clearly she was honest to goodness appreciating my absurd and densely packed memory of song lyrics.
Lyric upon lyric was stuffed in my head. My life to that point had been spent lying awake at night in my bed listening to underground radio on WMMR the radio station. I knew Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers, The Streets of London by Ralph McTell, I'm a Man by Muddy Waters and all of those hymns. Hey the second the needle hit the outer groove of American Beauty I was singing along to Box of Rain start to finish.
Wet and cold, stoned and drunk something inside of me changed that night. Mary's laugh gave me just a smidgen of self confidence. It really gave a spark to a sense that there were some parts of me which if strung together in a public persona might get me laid. Understand I was an male American teen, I wasn’t looking for meaning I was looking for pussy. That laugh, that night opened up the door to me understanding that there were things other than good looks and the ever elusive cool that would allow me to connect in a romantic relationship.
I never slept with Mary but I did fall head over heels in love with her. I know that we had a connection that was mutual at least for a few years. I also know she had a much better head for understanding what sex would have done to our relationship. Mary's warmth nurtured me and taught me to accept who I was. It also sort of motivated me to refine some of the better points of my own nature.
We got more wine that night and we went out riding the back roads over behind HoJos on the Turnpike. And we went out riding again and again over the next several years. While we kissed and fondled (just a little bit) she always kept real sex at a distance. It was a wise choice. Although the years have moved us far apart I will always appreciate that walk on a dark wet night. It started me on the process of becoming who I am today. I will always love her for finding something in me to connect with and value.
Dark hair, blue eyes, freckles, porcelain skin and an understanding of the world far beyond her years she was a beauty. I hope life has been good to her.
Sheaves bringing in the sheaves, we will come rejoicing, bringing in the Sheaves. Let us labor for the master….
Winter nights in New Jersey are cold and wet but not unbearable. On a particular night in February 1974, I wasn't feeling the chill that was in the damp air. Boone's Farm was warming me deep down inside. Cheap assed Mexican weed was giving my night an extra glow. Explaining my flushed feeling accurately all these years later is hard, it was comfortable, peaceful and giddy. At seventeen mixing the inhibition releasing qualities of alcohol with the mellowing parts of pot was just the right thing to do for a spastic, neurotic over wound and cluelesss teen boy, it was totally pacific.
Three of us were walking in that dark damp February night, I think. There might have been a fourth person but I only remember talking to two other people. Our path had started behind the new high school and we were walking through a field. Could have been coming from a basketball game or a maybe pep rally or something else altogether but we were on a mission. Onward march onward was the inner cry.
In trying to remember this incident I first thought the field might have been corn but upon reflection I don't think so. There were furrows and scrub brush about so I think it must have been an asparagus field in fallow. Getting whipped by the long stemmed plants and breaking through the ice in the bottom of the furrows my feet we getting soaked and my arms were stinging but who cared; we was lit. We wuz as the hipsters would say stone cold immaculate.
Walking on we were working our way through all the songs we knew so as to provide us a cadence. Sugar Magnolia had come and gone as had Smoke on the Water. Reaching back for more material I found myself deep into the old Baptist hymns. What I was singing was stuff that I had heard a hundred times or more. When you sat through four hours of church each Sunday you just learned some righteous gospel songs. Some songs you just heard again and again because that little old lady always requested her favorite hymn at every evening service.
Rock of Ages, Amazing Grace and now Bringing in the Sheaves, we (well mostly me with the other two just mouthing along) were hitting all the old Fanny J. Crosby style stuff. We were giggling now almost uncontrollably thinking that the sheaves in question must have been pot. I mean why else would anyone want to work that hard in heaven, right?
Mike and Mary (short for Marion), and I were pushing on. Lest there be any doubt our journey was focused on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Mike was 18 and at that time in NJ you could buy booze at 18. I have a couple of bucks, Mary had a couple of bucks and Mike had the ID. More Boone’s Farm awaited us.
Why we opted for this overland route eludes me but the promise of more wine made the slogging through the fields seem worth it. Most likely our path was chosen because in this small town if we were seen walking down the paved and thus dry street that was the route to the bar, one or all of our parents would have know where we were headed and why within the half hour. As they say it's a small town and the news travels faster than wheels.
As we walked and sang, well mostly as I sang in my very flat very off key voice, Mary kept commenting that she could not believe that I knew all the words to those songs. But I did. It came easy to me. When she commented about my steel trap memory for lyrics she laughed a laugh I had never heard before. It is a laugh I will never forget.
As hard as it is to describe I can remember that laugh in all its mellifluous detail. It was more than a giggle, but not a belly laugh. It wasn’t condescending, derisive or forced. Mary's laugh was warm and affectionate.
The sound of that laugh took me by surprise and knocked me off my feet. This laugh meant there was a member of the opposite sex who wasn’t being cruel to me. As long as that laugh lasted it meant Mary wasn't pointing out my failings in dress for you must understand that then as now I was the antithesis of stylish. Again the sound of gentleness in that chuckle meant she wasn't making a joke at my expense over one of my faux pas of some sort or another. The sound was pleasant; clearly she was honest to goodness appreciating my absurd and densely packed memory of song lyrics.
Lyric upon lyric was stuffed in my head. My life to that point had been spent lying awake at night in my bed listening to underground radio on WMMR the radio station. I knew Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers, The Streets of London by Ralph McTell, I'm a Man by Muddy Waters and all of those hymns. Hey the second the needle hit the outer groove of American Beauty I was singing along to Box of Rain start to finish.
Wet and cold, stoned and drunk something inside of me changed that night. Mary's laugh gave me just a smidgen of self confidence. It really gave a spark to a sense that there were some parts of me which if strung together in a public persona might get me laid. Understand I was an male American teen, I wasn’t looking for meaning I was looking for pussy. That laugh, that night opened up the door to me understanding that there were things other than good looks and the ever elusive cool that would allow me to connect in a romantic relationship.
I never slept with Mary but I did fall head over heels in love with her. I know that we had a connection that was mutual at least for a few years. I also know she had a much better head for understanding what sex would have done to our relationship. Mary's warmth nurtured me and taught me to accept who I was. It also sort of motivated me to refine some of the better points of my own nature.
We got more wine that night and we went out riding the back roads over behind HoJos on the Turnpike. And we went out riding again and again over the next several years. While we kissed and fondled (just a little bit) she always kept real sex at a distance. It was a wise choice. Although the years have moved us far apart I will always appreciate that walk on a dark wet night. It started me on the process of becoming who I am today. I will always love her for finding something in me to connect with and value.
Dark hair, blue eyes, freckles, porcelain skin and an understanding of the world far beyond her years she was a beauty. I hope life has been good to her.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Of Sidewalks and the Aurora
Grey early evening but it is not raining, at least not yet. The sidewalks are a mess. City crews have been out. Concrete dust, empty holes and yellow, blue and red painted arrows are everywhere. My pathways through the neighborhood are just plain ripped up and gone, vanished in the span of a day. My mind wonders if everyone who is tied to the two breadwinner lifestyle find things as simple as street maintenance as confounding as I do? I mean there was a notice I suppose, it said I had to pay the city $220 as my aliquot share for "sidewalk repair." Maybe.
Each morning I get up and take my shower in the dark. While my wife and kids are just beginning to stir I am packing lunch bags and conjuring up breakfast. Yeah conjuring describes it. One child won't eat toasted bread, one will. One won't eat friend eggs and the other won't eat scrambled. About the only agreement at this meal between the two of them is on the subject of bacon. Yeah it is like that song says, if it may result in bacon I would kill that porker with my own bare hands. And then there comes the dash to the car and the kids are off to school, and me to the bus stop and work.
Perhaps the notice provided the date the work was going to commence or maybe not. I mean I looked at that official looking paper when I got home. Yeah I was focused. It came on a night when I got here first and it was time for a Dad special meal. This means tomato sauce and burger was to be involved. Tomato sauce can cure all ills. Boboli bread and tomato sauce and burger equal a meat lover's pizza. Pasta and tomato sauce and hamburger avec fromage equals backed ziti. Two hands, buns and a frying pan mean a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Me, meat and tomato sauce mean a city notice just doesn’t get the respect that official looking city seal should command.
Somewhere I read a book about reclaiming the margins of life. The author implied that we had to set times for things like dinner and tasks and leisure. He implied that turning off phones and TVs and radios at meals and during the early evening hours were the way to go. Each night when I get home I have to check the homework online for each child. Each night when I get home I have to open up the computer for their research. (I did mention the dinner thing above right usually occurring concurrently with this process). The topics are always so damned easy too. Tonight one off project was to list fifty relatives you have (dead or alive) and define their relationship to you. Here come those damn consanguinity charts.
Maybe that doggerel ascribed to Ben Franklin was right. I remember it because it was burned on a piece of wood that hung on my bedroom door when I was a kid. I think it was a souvenir from some place out west. It went like this:
As a rule,
A man's a fool,
When its hot he wants it cool,
When its cool he wants it hot,
What it is he wants it not.
I think life in general is like that, if it weren't frenetic I would be bored. If it is frantic I am stressed. There is no happy medium well except for Madame Marie who keeps that bottle of gin beneath the folding card table which on which she tells fortunes.
I am not upset at the city by any means for the sidewalks need to be repaired. Really. It was only last week I almost did a header out there on one of those 1 inch heaved expansion slots. What upsets me is that I seem to be missing bigger and bigger things. Maybe one day due to my harried pace I will look around and my neighborhood will be completely and utterly gone. Maybe they will have moved it en masse to another part of the city or state. I mean I am just saying given how distracted I am it could happen and I would be none the wiser until I got home and only an empty pit remained.
There are times when I think it is only me that feels this way, and then I watch someone from work on the phone talking in that terse "What do you mean” voice to someone a child, a creditor whoever but it is the same tone I get when something has just whizzed by me. Maybe it is the technology. Maybe. Or maybe it is the willingness to just give up and give in to an unsustainable pace of living thrown at us by others in our communal quest for more, more, more (Thank you Billy Idol). Either way I don't really see it slowing down anytime soon.
I took a break to think when was the last time life was slow? I think it was on a camping trip to Rabbit Blanket Lake. As we sat out there in the northern Ontario night the campground was nearly empty, but we had a waterfront lot. The air was cool and the cell phones were out of range so the place was silent except for a few muffled conversations. The campfire crackled and a nice cold beer was nestled in my hand. Sitting there on a camp chair I looked up at the stars. Yeah, the moment didn't last long, but it was a slow moment, a special moment. Maybe this summer I can create another special moment like that. I hope so.
Before I die I want another shot as seeing the aurora put on a good show. I have only seen it once but it was ethereal and satisfying.
Each morning I get up and take my shower in the dark. While my wife and kids are just beginning to stir I am packing lunch bags and conjuring up breakfast. Yeah conjuring describes it. One child won't eat toasted bread, one will. One won't eat friend eggs and the other won't eat scrambled. About the only agreement at this meal between the two of them is on the subject of bacon. Yeah it is like that song says, if it may result in bacon I would kill that porker with my own bare hands. And then there comes the dash to the car and the kids are off to school, and me to the bus stop and work.
Perhaps the notice provided the date the work was going to commence or maybe not. I mean I looked at that official looking paper when I got home. Yeah I was focused. It came on a night when I got here first and it was time for a Dad special meal. This means tomato sauce and burger was to be involved. Tomato sauce can cure all ills. Boboli bread and tomato sauce and burger equal a meat lover's pizza. Pasta and tomato sauce and hamburger avec fromage equals backed ziti. Two hands, buns and a frying pan mean a Cheeseburger in Paradise. Me, meat and tomato sauce mean a city notice just doesn’t get the respect that official looking city seal should command.
Somewhere I read a book about reclaiming the margins of life. The author implied that we had to set times for things like dinner and tasks and leisure. He implied that turning off phones and TVs and radios at meals and during the early evening hours were the way to go. Each night when I get home I have to check the homework online for each child. Each night when I get home I have to open up the computer for their research. (I did mention the dinner thing above right usually occurring concurrently with this process). The topics are always so damned easy too. Tonight one off project was to list fifty relatives you have (dead or alive) and define their relationship to you. Here come those damn consanguinity charts.
Maybe that doggerel ascribed to Ben Franklin was right. I remember it because it was burned on a piece of wood that hung on my bedroom door when I was a kid. I think it was a souvenir from some place out west. It went like this:
As a rule,
A man's a fool,
When its hot he wants it cool,
When its cool he wants it hot,
What it is he wants it not.
I think life in general is like that, if it weren't frenetic I would be bored. If it is frantic I am stressed. There is no happy medium well except for Madame Marie who keeps that bottle of gin beneath the folding card table which on which she tells fortunes.
I am not upset at the city by any means for the sidewalks need to be repaired. Really. It was only last week I almost did a header out there on one of those 1 inch heaved expansion slots. What upsets me is that I seem to be missing bigger and bigger things. Maybe one day due to my harried pace I will look around and my neighborhood will be completely and utterly gone. Maybe they will have moved it en masse to another part of the city or state. I mean I am just saying given how distracted I am it could happen and I would be none the wiser until I got home and only an empty pit remained.
There are times when I think it is only me that feels this way, and then I watch someone from work on the phone talking in that terse "What do you mean” voice to someone a child, a creditor whoever but it is the same tone I get when something has just whizzed by me. Maybe it is the technology. Maybe. Or maybe it is the willingness to just give up and give in to an unsustainable pace of living thrown at us by others in our communal quest for more, more, more (Thank you Billy Idol). Either way I don't really see it slowing down anytime soon.
I took a break to think when was the last time life was slow? I think it was on a camping trip to Rabbit Blanket Lake. As we sat out there in the northern Ontario night the campground was nearly empty, but we had a waterfront lot. The air was cool and the cell phones were out of range so the place was silent except for a few muffled conversations. The campfire crackled and a nice cold beer was nestled in my hand. Sitting there on a camp chair I looked up at the stars. Yeah, the moment didn't last long, but it was a slow moment, a special moment. Maybe this summer I can create another special moment like that. I hope so.
Before I die I want another shot as seeing the aurora put on a good show. I have only seen it once but it was ethereal and satisfying.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
I Found My Thrill... *
Neat, mirror-shinny napkin dispensers, each in its own space, each equidistant from the next one, sat on the counter. Formica and white the counter stretched on for the length of the long thin front room of the diner. Between the napkin-holder/condiment stations sat those old jukebox units with metal tabs, tabs you pushed or pulled to move between pages listing song after song.
Round stools of chrome and sticky vinyl covers, a vinyl that made fart like sounds on hot days when you tried to move your butt around to get comfortable were bolted down for the whole length of the counter .The menus rested in little trestle things on the inside edge of the well worn counter. Wrapped in clear, but yellowing vinyl like your great aunts couch the numbers on the price column had been whited out and written over so many times you ended up guessing what the blurs really added up to. You hoped those crumpled dollars in your blue jeans would cover it.
The menus carried the death we all approach so quickly now in all of its tasty component parts. As your read each item you could smell the burger on the grill and catch that hot moist warm odor of the fries in the deep fat fryer coming from the kitchen. The first beverage was coffee. The next was Coca Cola and this was the real thing, the real stuff no saccharine, no aspertaine just vanilla and lots of carbonated sugar water.
Heinz Ketchup sat on the counter along with a squirt bottle of mustard of unknown origin. That squirt bottle with the brown caked cap at the top so yellow that it clearly was not a product of nature's bounty. The service was as quick as it needed to be and if you wanted it that coffee I mentioned was black and fresh and it didn't require sixteen different directions be given to the server; it was just coffee for chrissakes.
The place was the Fernwood Diner although it might have been the Summit or the Empire or even the Point Diner. A few menu items might change based on the nationality of the owners, but there was always a burger basket, a couple of shakes, the diet plate (peaches, lettuce and cottage cheese) and usually Coke products.
The kitchen staff dressed in white. The waitresses dressed in little pale outfits with aprons that were white, black or which matched the color of the outfit but with some frills at the edge. The women were older, always older than I was and they smelled of coffee and cigarettes. They talked fast, smiled (usually) and would crack a quip. Their apron pockets jingled with the sound of tip money. While these ladies might offer a mild double entendre there was no cursing and no overt sexual talk. This was before America threw in the towel and every conversation had to be punctuated by profanity and every line of talk had to end below the belt. You told the filthy joke about the midget the penguins and the Pope out on the steps leading into the diner, but never at the counter. Even then life was earthy and real but it stayed its nasty self outside the door because rules inside were rules.
I got to know this diner well because it was where I hid. Whenever I came to visit Muffy in her working class Philadelphia suburb, I would stay with her in the first floor flat she rented. Her apartment abutted the back of the Fernwood Diner. My gear, clothes and backpack were always stowed out of sight. If Muffy's parents came by for a visit, especially if they came by early, I had to be elsewhere. Thus when that doorbell rang I would haul ass out the back door and head over to the Diner.
Each time I would go into the Fernwood no matter what time of day or night I would normally order a burger and fries. Normally my visits at the diner would last a half hour or so. Having been hustled out to avoid detection I would get a Philadelphia Inquirer and I would work the crossword, slowly, very slowly. My vocabulary came from that puzzle, it wasn't the Times but it was hard enough.
I would wolf down the burger but I would play with the fries. One fry, one dip into the ketchup and one small sip of the Coke, do another clue. You sipped the Coke in small sips 'cause nobody refilled nothing 'cept an occasional warm up on coffee for free. Setting down my pen on the folder newsprint I would keep watch out the big glass window that wrapped around the chrome facade to see if the parents' car was gone. No matter how many times this routine happened the Buick would never leave soon enough. Most of the time I would be nearly done the puzzle with the odd five letter word left to finish when I say the car pull away.
Each and every time I was wasting another precious moment of life in the diner I would flip those little metal tabs and move the metal sheets with the little red and white labels identifying each song, artist and b-side until I had seen them all. There would always be a couple of current songs, like Elton John's Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters or Rocket Man. And there were a bunch of songs like Aretha singing Respect or Chain of Fools. CCR was also heavily represented.
Tucked on each of those metal pages were some classic oldies, Charlie Brown, some Fat's Domino and Gene Pitney. It was weird it was like the juke box was trying to be all things to all people. If my visit were later in the day I would play Credence or Elton or something else with a good solid beat. Kids my age 18 or 19 would nod their heads along but I could see the staff was just tolerating it. Most of the time during my exile I just didn't play anything, hey a dime did not come easily out of my pocket.
One morning and I think it was a Saturday. I mean it probably wasn't a Sunday because almost invariably I would already be hitchhiking back to Michigan on a Sunday unless I had gotten a ride back lined up off the ride board on campus. Usually this didn't happen because Philly was six hundred miles away from East Lansing. Well, anyway the parents showed up early and unannounced. Tennis shoes, t-shirt and jeans no socks and maybe commando in the underwear department I bolted for the diner. Luckily I had some money in my pocket. For a change I made my order wrecked eggs and zeppelins with liquid sunshine. And there was some loose change.
I flipped that dine a couple of times weighing what kind of nasty looks I would get if I played something on the jukebox at 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. Finally I just decided to say screw it and dropped it in the slot. I was committed now but what to play. The pages went back and forth five or ten times. Finally I opted for an oldie. Punching D-9 I picked Blueberry Hill. What happened next was surreal.
As the song began to play one of the waitresses was heading into the kitchen. From where I sat I could see the guy washing dishes and the cook and another guy who seemed to be doing some prep. As the song got to about the third word all of these guys started to sing and dance. True story it was like watching Frankie Avalon, James Darrin and Bobby Rydell all singing along and doing their best moves in prep for their next Bandstand appearance. Well except these guys were fat, middle aged and wearing soiled cooks’ whites. Every time that door swung in or out these guys were singing in dancing and cutting up stuff and flipping eggs and whatever. The waitresses were singing too, on key and with a lilt in their step. It was clear that this had happened before, many, many times.
Me I just put my paper down and took it all in. Hey I don’t know why, but it was an amazing moment. All these people doing this little bit of musical theatre for themselves for whatever reason and being in a good, nayh great mood for two minutes and thirty eight seconds.
Maybe it was just that song. Maybe they had a shared experience and the whole thing was tied to someone that was now gone. I don’t know I didn’t ask and nobody volunteered. When the song ended the dancing stop and the magic moment ended. A couple of minutes later and the parents pulled away. I left some coins, paid at the register by the door and left.
I think this memory sticks with me because it was unexpected, unique and surreally beautiful. I could go into a hundred diners and play a hundred oldies and nothing like this would ever happen again. But it did happen that day when I was at loose ends and my ten cents put it into play. Serendipity?
Round stools of chrome and sticky vinyl covers, a vinyl that made fart like sounds on hot days when you tried to move your butt around to get comfortable were bolted down for the whole length of the counter .The menus rested in little trestle things on the inside edge of the well worn counter. Wrapped in clear, but yellowing vinyl like your great aunts couch the numbers on the price column had been whited out and written over so many times you ended up guessing what the blurs really added up to. You hoped those crumpled dollars in your blue jeans would cover it.
The menus carried the death we all approach so quickly now in all of its tasty component parts. As your read each item you could smell the burger on the grill and catch that hot moist warm odor of the fries in the deep fat fryer coming from the kitchen. The first beverage was coffee. The next was Coca Cola and this was the real thing, the real stuff no saccharine, no aspertaine just vanilla and lots of carbonated sugar water.
Heinz Ketchup sat on the counter along with a squirt bottle of mustard of unknown origin. That squirt bottle with the brown caked cap at the top so yellow that it clearly was not a product of nature's bounty. The service was as quick as it needed to be and if you wanted it that coffee I mentioned was black and fresh and it didn't require sixteen different directions be given to the server; it was just coffee for chrissakes.
The place was the Fernwood Diner although it might have been the Summit or the Empire or even the Point Diner. A few menu items might change based on the nationality of the owners, but there was always a burger basket, a couple of shakes, the diet plate (peaches, lettuce and cottage cheese) and usually Coke products.
The kitchen staff dressed in white. The waitresses dressed in little pale outfits with aprons that were white, black or which matched the color of the outfit but with some frills at the edge. The women were older, always older than I was and they smelled of coffee and cigarettes. They talked fast, smiled (usually) and would crack a quip. Their apron pockets jingled with the sound of tip money. While these ladies might offer a mild double entendre there was no cursing and no overt sexual talk. This was before America threw in the towel and every conversation had to be punctuated by profanity and every line of talk had to end below the belt. You told the filthy joke about the midget the penguins and the Pope out on the steps leading into the diner, but never at the counter. Even then life was earthy and real but it stayed its nasty self outside the door because rules inside were rules.
I got to know this diner well because it was where I hid. Whenever I came to visit Muffy in her working class Philadelphia suburb, I would stay with her in the first floor flat she rented. Her apartment abutted the back of the Fernwood Diner. My gear, clothes and backpack were always stowed out of sight. If Muffy's parents came by for a visit, especially if they came by early, I had to be elsewhere. Thus when that doorbell rang I would haul ass out the back door and head over to the Diner.
Each time I would go into the Fernwood no matter what time of day or night I would normally order a burger and fries. Normally my visits at the diner would last a half hour or so. Having been hustled out to avoid detection I would get a Philadelphia Inquirer and I would work the crossword, slowly, very slowly. My vocabulary came from that puzzle, it wasn't the Times but it was hard enough.
I would wolf down the burger but I would play with the fries. One fry, one dip into the ketchup and one small sip of the Coke, do another clue. You sipped the Coke in small sips 'cause nobody refilled nothing 'cept an occasional warm up on coffee for free. Setting down my pen on the folder newsprint I would keep watch out the big glass window that wrapped around the chrome facade to see if the parents' car was gone. No matter how many times this routine happened the Buick would never leave soon enough. Most of the time I would be nearly done the puzzle with the odd five letter word left to finish when I say the car pull away.
Each and every time I was wasting another precious moment of life in the diner I would flip those little metal tabs and move the metal sheets with the little red and white labels identifying each song, artist and b-side until I had seen them all. There would always be a couple of current songs, like Elton John's Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters or Rocket Man. And there were a bunch of songs like Aretha singing Respect or Chain of Fools. CCR was also heavily represented.
Tucked on each of those metal pages were some classic oldies, Charlie Brown, some Fat's Domino and Gene Pitney. It was weird it was like the juke box was trying to be all things to all people. If my visit were later in the day I would play Credence or Elton or something else with a good solid beat. Kids my age 18 or 19 would nod their heads along but I could see the staff was just tolerating it. Most of the time during my exile I just didn't play anything, hey a dime did not come easily out of my pocket.
One morning and I think it was a Saturday. I mean it probably wasn't a Sunday because almost invariably I would already be hitchhiking back to Michigan on a Sunday unless I had gotten a ride back lined up off the ride board on campus. Usually this didn't happen because Philly was six hundred miles away from East Lansing. Well, anyway the parents showed up early and unannounced. Tennis shoes, t-shirt and jeans no socks and maybe commando in the underwear department I bolted for the diner. Luckily I had some money in my pocket. For a change I made my order wrecked eggs and zeppelins with liquid sunshine. And there was some loose change.
I flipped that dine a couple of times weighing what kind of nasty looks I would get if I played something on the jukebox at 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. Finally I just decided to say screw it and dropped it in the slot. I was committed now but what to play. The pages went back and forth five or ten times. Finally I opted for an oldie. Punching D-9 I picked Blueberry Hill. What happened next was surreal.
As the song began to play one of the waitresses was heading into the kitchen. From where I sat I could see the guy washing dishes and the cook and another guy who seemed to be doing some prep. As the song got to about the third word all of these guys started to sing and dance. True story it was like watching Frankie Avalon, James Darrin and Bobby Rydell all singing along and doing their best moves in prep for their next Bandstand appearance. Well except these guys were fat, middle aged and wearing soiled cooks’ whites. Every time that door swung in or out these guys were singing in dancing and cutting up stuff and flipping eggs and whatever. The waitresses were singing too, on key and with a lilt in their step. It was clear that this had happened before, many, many times.
Me I just put my paper down and took it all in. Hey I don’t know why, but it was an amazing moment. All these people doing this little bit of musical theatre for themselves for whatever reason and being in a good, nayh great mood for two minutes and thirty eight seconds.
Maybe it was just that song. Maybe they had a shared experience and the whole thing was tied to someone that was now gone. I don’t know I didn’t ask and nobody volunteered. When the song ended the dancing stop and the magic moment ended. A couple of minutes later and the parents pulled away. I left some coins, paid at the register by the door and left.
I think this memory sticks with me because it was unexpected, unique and surreally beautiful. I could go into a hundred diners and play a hundred oldies and nothing like this would ever happen again. But it did happen that day when I was at loose ends and my ten cents put it into play. Serendipity?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Stimulus, mental and fiscal
Lunch time is here and I am sitting in a coffee shop listening to Dar Williams sing “I will not be afraid of women.” All I can say is that this does not apply equally to me. Fear of those with two Xs (okay at least caution) has always proved the most prudent course for me. I am just saying.
There is something wonderful about being in friendly place with good music on the music system. In the course of the few minutes I can stay here I can hear the good ole Grateful Dead, Snow Patrol, Led Zeppelin, Sandy Denny and some old Gaelic thing that has a chorus about being drunk again. You shouldn’t sit at your desk all of lunch. The mind and the body need to wander. Support the economy, buy a latte today.
There is something wonderful about being in friendly place with good music on the music system. In the course of the few minutes I can stay here I can hear the good ole Grateful Dead, Snow Patrol, Led Zeppelin, Sandy Denny and some old Gaelic thing that has a chorus about being drunk again. You shouldn’t sit at your desk all of lunch. The mind and the body need to wander. Support the economy, buy a latte today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)