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WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU HEARD?

November 25, 2013 //
1

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN YOU HEARD?

The fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination has revived the question that has meant only one thing to most Americans over the age of fifty. More recently, 9/11 has taken on the horrific role for a younger generation. Still others, with their focus on other aspects of the American experience, may apply the question to the OJ Simpson verdict, the Space Shuttle explosion or Magic Johnson’s first retirement from the NBA.
I heard about President Kennedy’s shooting during morning recess from second grade on the playground at Gompers Elementary School in West Philadelphia. A first grader interrupted my idle pondering of a frozen puddle with my friend Bruce Levin to announce “the president got shot.”
“Did not,” said Bruce, who was inclined to disagree with anyone’s pronouncements, especially those of a lowly first grader. If the kid had told him three plus three was six, he’d likely have responded: “Is not.”
When we returned minutes later to the classroom, however, we instantly knew the report was correct. Our teacher, Mrs. Stein, who we thought was about eighty, but was probably forty-five, appeared ashen before us.
“Something terrible has happened,” she said, daubing a handkerchief to her eyes.
I don’t remember what else she said, exactly, but I do remember Eileen Johnson, a tall dark-skinned girl with two stunningly long pig-tails on either side of her head, collapsing with hysterical grief. It was as though the President were her father. I have a vague recollection of school closing early, and my mother retrieving me that day, just as I was to retrieve my fifth and sixth graders thirty-eight years later when violence again rained from above to sear our collective sense of security. I knew the assassination of John Kennedy was a bad thing but I could not comprehend how it affected my immediate life.
The 1962-1964 years were not bad from the perspective of my youthful self. I knew there was a “Cold War” going on and the opposition was vaguely called Communists. I recall huddling in the hallway at Gompers during drills attached to the threat of their attack. But I didn’t know what a Communist was, exactly, and I couldn’t comprehend how the scary photographs of Hiroshima I’d seen could possibly have application to leafy West Philadelphia. My father listened to news radio each morning and I detected tension, especially when the talk was about Cuba, where I knew my parents had traveled for their honeymoon. But I was more interested in the dire performance of the Phillies; what could be worse than rooting for them?
We occasionally assembled in the “audio-visual room” at school to watch films of nuclear testing taking place out west, somewhere. These newsreels seemed to involve a lot of our soldiers hunkering down in ditches wearing sunglasses, watching a mushroom cloud and the resultant windstorm sweeping over them. More often than not, the film broke or the projector malfunctioned, and we were returned to our regular routine of arithmetic and reading.
Bruce was my best friend at school, but he did not live within walking distance of my home and my mother did not yet drive. At home, the ONLY kids near my age in the neighborhood were Danny and Stevie O’Malley. They were my exclusive playmates after school, on weekends and during the summer. They were one year older and one year younger than I, respectively. In appearance, picture Dennis the Menace and Timmy from the Lassie show, both bountiful in blondness and freckles. My neighborhood and Gompers Elementary School were populated almost entirely by Jewish people and black people, but the O’Malley family was Irish Catholic. As such, Danny and Stevie did not attend public school but instead went to a school called St. Mathias. It was located on the other side of City Line Avenue, “in the suburbs,” and may as well have been across the ocean.
Danny and Stevie’s house had pictures of the Pope and President Kennedy in every room, along with a cross that I knew had something to do with their religion. My parents were both upset when President Kennedy was killed; I observed my mother wipe her eyes and saw my father’s grim and sad expression, but I was warned that the O’Malley’s felt grief beyond the ordinary.
“Be sure to behave quietly at the O’Malley’s today,” my mother told me shortly after the assassination. “The President was very important to them.”
“Wasn’t he important to us?” I asked.
“Yes, very, but he was like a…” she hesitated, and continued, “…a special family member to them.”
Their stone-clad house was larger and older than ours, and it held several major, intriguing attractions. A huge swing set dominated their large, grassy yard, and we could fly “to the moon” and “over the mountain” to our hearts’ content. Even better, they had an old, detached garage containing an abandoned coal pit along with several rooms that were grist for our imaginative mills. We could be cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. In the pit, we could dig towards China. We did not have a plan for what we would do when we arrived on the other side of the earth, but we dug deep enough that Mrs. O’Malley eventually made us cease, lest the foundation of the structure be undermined.
“What do you boys think you’re doing?” she asked. “You could bring down the entire building. Don’t make me have to tell your father about this.”
We obeyed her thankfully; I rarely saw Danny and Stevie’s father. When I did, he was a non-speaking, gruff-appearing presence behind a newspaper and a pipe. I recall thinking I would not like to see him angry. Their mother was nice, though. She made grilled-cheese sandwiches just the way I liked them and sometimes included a slice of Taylor ham I would never have been served at home. The boys and I never discussed religion, but I knew mine was different, and food had something to do with it.
In the basement of the O’Malley home was a huge bar, carved to resemble a ship’s prow. We spent hours and hours fighting pirates there. A shadowy water stain on the ceiling brought to mind ghosts and goblins and further inflamed our fecund minds. If we chose to watch television, my house had a rabbit-eared set in the basement where we enjoyed the Three Stooges and cartoons like Mighty Mouse and Underdog. I was not a fan of Felix the Cat, but Danny and Stevie were, and this difference provided one of our only bases for dispute.
The most tangible evidence of the Cold War for me was that at some point in 1962 or 1963, the O’Malley family constructed a bomb shelter in their backyard. That was the coolest thing ever! A green, square metal hatch, adjacent to a ventilation pipe, signaled its location. For several months, after the shelter was finished, the garage and swings and ship-bar were nearly forgotten in favor of this play-space from heaven. Danny, Stevie and I used our combined muscle to pull open the hatch and climb down twelve feet or so (it seemed like thirty) on a metal ladder to the concrete floor below. There, constructed in the same stark, green metal as the entrance door, were six bunk beds screwed into the walls and shelves holding cans of food.
I am not certain we were “allowed” to play in the shelter. But we were not expressly forbidden, either, as far as I knew. In that space, we could be space travelers, or soldiers, or explorers, or the meanest prisoners in Alcatraz. We could survive for years on the cans of food that surrounded us, we imagined, while we beat back the Communists or space aliens, or whoever it was that might attack us. I don’t recall there being a specific plan for HOW we were going to fight back from our subterranean position, but the seven-year-old mind need not necessarily work out all the details.
Perhaps, it was the innocence of the times, or the lack of complication from such a small trio of friends, but Danny, Stevie and I were self-sufficient in our play. Parental involvement was non-existent, in stark contrast to modern-day parenting, where the parent/chauffeur/coach is integral. It was only when we decided to take off the wrappers from the canned food that we got in trouble. Mrs. O’Malley was not pleased when she happened to come down and notice it was now impossible to tell canned corn from baked beans. Even after we explained that we were trying to find a secret code that spies might have written on the cans, she was not satisfied.
“I won’t tell your father about this,” she warned the boys. “He would be EXTREMELY angry. But you can’t play in the shelter anymore, or he will hear about it.”
“Please don’t tell dad,” said Danny and Stevie. “We won’t go down here again.” I noted how fearful they were of their father’s wrath. Duly chastened, we returned to above-ground activities. One hot day in the summer of 1964, Mrs. O’Malley set up a sprinkler on the lawn for us to play in. After she went inside the house, we found some metal supports from an old badminton net underneath a bush. We wielded them ecstatically from opposite sides of the stream, slashing through the water as though each drop of water were a fly to be swatted.
“I hit one to the street,” I yelled.
“I hit one even further,” shouted Stevie.
“Whoa, I clobbered that one,” said Danny.
Our shouting and laughing reached a crescendo when I swung as hard as I could through the sun-splashed stream and connected with a solid object that felt like a watermelon; Stevie and I stood in stunned silence when Danny collapsed to the ground clutching his head. He began to moan as Stevie dropped his stick and ran towards the house. “Mom, mom,” he shouted. “Stuart hit Danny with a stick.”
I dropped my stick, too, and ran towards my house in the opposite direction, experiencing my introduction to the effects of the adrenal gland. No one was home when I arrived, my heart pounding. I went upstairs to my room and shut the door.
“I’ve killed Danny,” I thought to myself. “I’m going to jail. I’m going to be punished by Mr. O’Malley.” I wasn’t sure which fate was worse.
My mother came home shortly thereafter. I said “hello” but didn’t tell her what had happened. I thought a police car would show up at any time. I stayed in my room picturing terrifying scenarios, with Danny dead, his father chasing me around the block. I tried to concentrate on studying baseball cards, but I was trembling with fear. Once, the telephone rang, and my heart pounded anew, but I heard my mother engaged in normal conversation with my aunt. An hour or two later, my father came home from work, and I was called down to dinner.
“Is everything alright?” my mother asked me, apparently noticing my discomfort.
“Yes,” I said, trying to appear nonchalant.
“Did you play at Danny and Stevie’s this afternoon?” she asked.
“Un-hunh,” I said.
The conversation turned to my father’s day at the store. Now, I was starting to wonder if we would ever hear from the O’Malley’s or the police. Not hearing was almost becoming worse than hearing. Finally, after dinner, while I was upstairs trying not to think about Danny’s demise and my new role as a murderer, I heard the doorbell ring downstairs. I heard my mother open the door and exchange greetings with a man.
“Oh, no,” I thought. Either a policeman or Mr. O’Malley had come for me.
The adults spoke for several moments until my mother’s voice sounded from the bottom of the staircase.
“Come down here, Stuart,” she said. “Someone is here to speak with you.”
I exited my room and approached the stairs like a prisoner going to the gallows. At the bottom, looking up, were my mother and Mr. O’Malley. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white shirt, with black glasses and a blond crew-cut that matched the severity of his expression.
“Did you happen to hit Danny with a pole this afternoon?” he asked, his tone neutral, when I reached the third step from the bottom, and met his gaze.
“Yes, I did,” I said. It occurred to me that he did not look grief-stricken, just angry, but I didn’t know him well enough to be sure. Perhaps, Danny was still alive. “I didn’t mean to,” I added.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” said Mr. O’Malley. “You must have been scared when it happened.”
“I am, uh, was, uh, am, uh, scared,” I stuttered.
“He has quite a bump on his forehead,” said Mr. O’Malley.
“He’s alive?” I said, feeling a huge boulder of worry lifting off my head.
Mr. O’Malley’s face dissolved into laughter.
“Did you think you’d killed him?” asked my mother.
“I wasn’t sure,” I said.
“His head is harder than you’d think,” said Mr. O’Malley, smiling. “How ‘bout if you come over and tell him you’re sorry. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
“That’s a good idea,” said my mother sternly, clearly unhappy I had not told her what had happened.
I followed Mr. O’Malley through several yards to his house, taking the short-cut that Danny, Stevie and I usually used. We didn’t exchange any more words. When we arrived, he ushered me into the living room, where Danny was laying on a couch as though he were a knight on a casket in Westminster Abbey. A bag of ice clung to the side of his head. I noticed that Mrs. O’Malley and Stevie were on another couch watching television. The Pope and President Kennedy gazed down upon us from their photographs on the wall. Stevie gave me a small wave.
“Sorry I hit you,” I said to Danny.
“It really hurts,” he said, grimacing.
He pulled down his ice-pack to reveal an ugly knot just below the hairline.
“I was afraid you were dead,” I said, my nervousness making me begin to giggle.
“I thought so, too,” interjected Stevie, laughing.
“It’s not funny,” protested Danny, fighting hard to sound angry, before he started laughing, too.
“Oh,that hurts,” Danny added, catching himself.
The incident of the hit-in-the-head is the last I remember from my relationship with Danny and Stevie. They moved to the suburbs shortly thereafter. I’m sure it wasn’t because I hit Danny in the head, though it probably didn’t help, either. My mother arranged for me to play with them two or three times after they moved, but we were in different orbits. They had tons of new friends and I felt awkward. Life changes a lot in just a few months when you are seven.
The former O’Malley home fell into disrepair over the years. The shrubbery around the property grew out of control, and the yard was not even visible for a period of decades. But in my last visit to Philadelphia, I saw that a new owner had recently renovated the house and brought the landscaping under control. I stopped my car adjacent to the side yard and gazed in. The swings were gone, of course, and the garage was rebuilt nicer than it had ever been, to match the main home, like a formal carriage house. But poking up in the middle of the yard was the green ventilation pipe from the bomb shelter, the last vestige of a time gone by. It summoned memories of a dangerous time for our country, of a world scary and on edge. I pondered the hugely important incidents which took place, largely beyond my comprehension, and I recalled a less earth-shattering, but seriously scary incident for me, too.

Tags , , ,
Categories Coming of Age, family relationships, Parenting

LET ‘EM EAT ICE CREAM CAKE

November 11, 2013 //
6

ICE CREAM

Among the major food groups in my diet is ice cream. I have come by this naturally, having been raised in a family that considered a trip for ice cream the “go-to” activity for those occasional Sunday afternoons when my father was willing to indulge. In his seven-day-a-week work schedule, Sunday afternoon was his leisure time.
The childhood ice cream routine, circa 1963, doubtless shaped my later ability to negotiate as a lawyer, parent and husband. My mother was co-conspirator in prevailing upon my father, and she taught me to over-ask initially, while being prepared to accept an inevitable counter-offer. For instance, if she suggested we go to the Guernsey Cow, a massive ice cream and confectionary emporium an hour away, my father would typically offer to drive to Miller’s, a less-august shop thirty minutes away. If she suggested Miller’s, we would be prepared to accept a visit to Leof’s, a drug-store with an ice cream counter just three minutes away by car, or a ten-minute walk.
If my father were resistant even to Leof’s, my mother and I would resort to the freezer where there was a likely a half-gallon of Breyer’s ice cream. In those days a half-gallon was really a half-gallon, before manufacturers figured out they could make sleek packaging that SEEMS to be a half-gallon but is tapered to actually contain significantly less.
There was also a Baskin-Robbins shop near our home, but it never entered the negotiations. B-R was our ice cream target of opportunity, when passing by. Such a treat could occur on any day of the week and did not usually involve my father. The essential flavor at Baskin-Robbins, though thirty-one were touted, was mint chocolate chip. Some of the other flavors were doubtless delicious but, as far as my mother and I were concerned, there was only one flavor.
When my father occasionally surprised us by agreeing to go to the Guernsey Cow, it was actually a Pyrrhic victory for me. Truthfully, I did not particularly like their ice cream. There was no compelling flavor and, in order to make the long ride worthwhile, we usually ordered banana splits. Now, I realize there are people who love banana splits, just as there are people who love jelly in cookies or chocolate, but I have never enjoyed fruit with my ice cream or jelly with my cookies or chocolate.
The other specialty at the Guernsey Cow was homemade butterscotch taffy. Though I have a weakness for most sweets, I was not a fan. I feared that taffy, like Sugar Daddies, Tootsie-Rolls, and their ilk, would pull out my fillings. I do not recall this calamity actually occurring, but my fear of dentists was enough to sour me on taffy. Alas, my fear was apparently not compelling enough to make me brush my teeth thoroughly and consistently enough to avoid having fillings in the first place.
Later in life, my own family lived in Ramsey, NJ, a community where Baskin-Robbins franchises grew like trees. Stopping for ice cream was a staple of the post-soccer practice routine for all three of my children, but particularly for my daughter, Sarah. The health benefits of the soccer may have been outweighed by the diet shortfalls of the ice cream, but the psychological benefits to both of us made the trade-off worthwhile; anyone familiar with adolescents knows that a cheerful and cooperative 11-14-year-old daughter is priceless.
Scientific tests have not been undertaken, to my knowledge, but I believe preferences in ice cream flavor are inherited. From birth, Sarah never deviated from mint chocolate chip as her flavor. And it had to be from Baskin-Robbins. Imitations by other manufacturers, often labeled “chocolate mint chip” were specifically NOT acceptable. Along with subtle taste distinctions in the mint ice cream, the key to B-R MCC (as it was sometimes called in our efficiency-minded household) was, and continues to be, its tiny, melt-in-the-mouth dark chocolate flakes. Other brands, with their white ice cream and/or large chunks of chocolate, or imitation chocolate, were simply unacceptable.
I take pride in my daughter’s perhaps-excessive devotion to B-R mint chocolate chip. While I may have fallen for the occasional pralines and cream, vanilla or chocolate, Sarah’s devotion is PURE. When she went to college, I mailed her coupons for Baskin-Robbins. Among the advantages of the off-campus apartment where she lived in Wilmington, NC, was its proximity to a Baskin-Robbins.
So it was not entirely a surprise, last week, when Sarah, who moved last spring to nearby Raleigh, had a specific request for her birthday which falls on Halloween.
“I want a Baskin-Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream cake,” she said on the phone, a few days ahead of the event.
My initial response was flat-footed: “There isn’t a Baskin-Robbins in Chapel Hill. Would Ben & Jerry’s or Cold Stone Creamery be acceptable?”
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. It occurred to me I should appreciate how amazing it was for me and my wife, Katie, to have the exclusive opportunity to share her twenty-fourth birthday. As a Halloween baby, Sarah’s youthful celebrations were always dominated by the hubbub of trick-or-treating and parties. Now that she is a young adult, and given her tendency to be involved with a boyfriend, her unattached status this year may prove to be a one-time event.
“I’ll find a Baskin-Robbins,” I recovered to say.
“Good,” she said, fully aware of her advantage over her defenseless father.
After I hung up, Katie said, “We drive past Ben & Jerry’s every other day, but I don’t know of any Baskin-Robbins around here.”
“There has to be one,” I said, confidently, though I was aware that the concentration in North Carolina does not nearly match that of New Jersey.
I Googled Baskin-Robbins locations and, sure enough, there was a shop in Durham, only thirty-five minutes away.
“That was easy,” I declared, recalling the busy shops in Ramsey with their freezers full of ice cream cakes from floor-to-ceiling. “I’ll go pick up a mint chocolate chip cake.”
“You’d better call first,” said Katie, wiser than I in the ways of local businesses. After all, she’s dealt with the “authorized appliance repairmen” who consult the manual, and the plumbers who put spigots in backwards.
“You don’t think they’ll have a mint chocolate chip cake available?” I asked.
Sure enough, they did not.
“We can order one,” said the girl on the phone. “It’ll take a week, though.”
“Her birthday is in two days,” I said.
“Sorry,” said the Durham Baskin-Robbins.
I located one other shop in the semi-vicinity, in Apex, a fifty-minute drive, and called.
“Do you have a mint chocolate chip cake available, for Halloween?” I asked, with trepidation.
“We don’t,” said the girl on the telephone, “but let me see if we can get one.”
I waited in suspense. A different voice came on the line.
“Hi, I’m the manager. We can custom-make a cake for you,” she said. “You can pick it up on Halloween after one o’clock.”
“Thank you,” I said, with relief. “Do you want the details?”
“No, we’ll have the designer call you for those,” said the manager.
“Designer?” I said.
“Yes sir,” she said, with pride. “We have an off-site specialist come in to make our cakes.”
“Wow,” I said.
After I hung up, I related the discussion to Katie. I concluded, with amazement: “It’ll be a small cake. There’re only three of us. What kind of training is involved to become an ice cream cake specialist?”
The next day the phone rang.
“Hi,” said a pleasant voice with a soft, southern accent. “I’m Carly, the cake designer for the Apex store. Tell me what you have in mind.”
I explained the relatively small size of the cake, Sarah’s devotion to mint chocolate chip, and her preference for chocolate crust over graham.
“Okay Mr. Sanders,” said Carly. “Tell me more about your daughter. What does she love? What are her passions?”
“You mean besides mint chocolate chip ice cream?” I asked.
“Yes, I want to know about her as a person,” said Carly.
I took a moment to contemplate how this discussion could be taking place with a stranger in regard to an ice cream cake. I wondered for a moment if I were the butt of a practical joke. I wondered what this cake was going to cost. But I couldn’t cheap out on this; I’d already come too far.
“Um, Sarah loves her dog,” I said. “That’s probably her main passion right now.”
“What kind of dog?” asked Carly.
“A cocker spaniel,” I said. “Her name is Stella, and she’s brown, with caramel-colored eyebrows,” I added, trying to anticipate her next questions.
“Great,” said Carly. “I’ll start working on it.”
“By the way, not that it matters,” I started to say, also anticipating Katie’s next question. “How much….”
Carly had already hung up.
After lunch, on Halloween, we drove to Apex. When we arrived at the store, in the corner of a small shopping center, we noted that the property looked new. The shop was bustling with three young women behind the counter.
“I’m here to pick up an ice cream cake for Sanders,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said the manager, a tiny Chinese woman, smiling. “Carly made a very special cake for you.”
She reached up to the top shelf of the freezer behind the counter and brought down a box, twice as high as it was wide, perhaps eight inches across.
“Look,” she said, pointing through the cellophane top.
I peered into the package and beheld a work of art, a square cake topped with brown icing and orange trim, including a doghouse and a dog that looked remarkably like Stella, floppy icing ears and all, holding a banner from her mouth that read “Happy Birthday, Sarah.” I was truly impressed.
“It’s perfect,” I said, brandishing my credit card.
“Carly will be so pleased,” said the manager. “She takes great pride in her work.”
“That’s clear,” I said.
The manager accepted my card. “Fifteen dollars,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it. “This was a custom-made cake,” I said. “How can it only be fifteen dollars?”
“That’s what it is,” said the manager.
I felt a strange sensation, that of enjoying a job extraordinarily well-done, for significantly less than expected. I felt embarrassed to be paying such a small sum with a credit card. I grabbed two additional pre-packed quarts of mint chocolate chip from the freezer to bump up the total.
“Can I leave a tip for Carly?” I asked.
“No,” said the manager, “but you can fill out the on-line survey and say something nice about her.”
“Absolutely,” I said. We completed a tribute to Carly as soon as we returned to the car.
If he were alive, my father would probably not find much that is familiar in modern-day North Carolina. However, he would certainly relate to the 1963-like price of an ice cream cake from the Apex Baskin-Robbins. In fact, there is a small, delicious piece of cake in the freezer that Sarah accidentally left behind. I think it has my name on it.

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Categories Coming of Age, Modern Society, Parenting

MAURA

October 14, 2013 //
2

MAURA
During my first year at Dickinson College in South-Central Pennsylvania, I spent most non-studying and non-soccer-playing time with a collection of socially naive males. We named ourselves Kappa Wu, to mock the Greek system we all despised with every disdainful and intellectually superior bone in our bodies. Kappa Wu comprised about twelve members who had virtually no contact with the opposite sex outside of classrooms. For a variety of reasons, we were inexperienced and awkward, and found it easier to hang out together than to branch out.
This is not to say I had no female friends. I had one. The closest thing our soccer team had to a groupie was a sophomore named Liz. She staked out our preseason practices and commenced dating our best player before the season even began. When they broke up, Liz dated several other players, one-at-a-time. Somehow, she managed to remain friendly with all of them. She never reached as far down the roster as me, however, the shy freshman goalie, but she did once bring her roommate, Maura, to a game.
Maura recognized me from Music 101 and, during warm-ups, in front of my teammates asked if I would help her study. Supremely self-conscious, I feared being razzed by the guys with insensitive male insinuations. But Maura apparently appeared too weird to attract and hold their attention, so I was spared.
In its two hundred year history,  Dickinson’s probably never had another student from New Mexico. Maura was a slight brunette of medium height, and if one could get a clear look at her, she would probably have been considered attractive. However, in a milieu that favored conventional styles, Maura was an outlier. She covered herself in beat-up overalls and a changing selection of oversized, bright-colored plastic glasses that dominated her face. She frequently wore a cowboy hat and boots, too, basically the western grunge version of Diane Keaton.
Maura’s sideline approach to me could have represented a landmark in my social history; a girl had publicly expressed interest in spending time with me. But I also felt her overpowering “otherness,” which left me no expectation we could be more than friends. After just one or two additional encounters, it was clear I would be the big brother in all matters of classical music, and Maura would be the big sister in every other way.

*****

I learned that Maura seemed to be nineteen going on thirty. She had traveled all over the country. She’d ridden motorcycles and horses and real bucking broncos (outside, not in a bar). Unlike Liz, she was not the least attracted by the soccer team; “college boys are so immature,” she declared. Even the local law students, some of whom approached twenty-five, were beneath her level of interest. “I like real men,” said Maura to me, her local, musically advanced little brother (if the music was written before 1850).
Music 101 was a survey course of Renaissance and Baroque music; having studied music history and theory in high school, as well as having had a lifetime of exposure to classical music, I found the course simple. To Maura, as to many who thought “Baroque” meant something had to be fixed, Music 101 was a quagmire. Discerning the difference between major and minor keys was difficult for her. Recognizing stylistic differences between a seventeenth century Italian and an eighteenth century German composer was impossible.
“It’s Bach,” I would say. “Listen to the polyphony, the fugal elements.”
“What does fugal mean again?” Maura would ask.
And so it went. Still, in spite of such challenges, I enjoyed spending time with Maura. She was interesting and obviously different from my other friends. Sometimes, we shared a meal at the cafeteria or took a walk together. Using a skill that placed me in the forefront of technology in 1975, I typed several of her papers. “Would you mind if I did some editing, while I’m at it?” I asked.
“Be my guest,” she said.

*****

I didn’t feel Maura took advantage of me. Her requests were infrequent, and I had plenty of time, particularly after the soccer season ended. In the spring, she sat beside me in Music 102 and we walked together to the local ice cream shop several times. I don’t recall discussing anything consequential, so I was surprised when Maura told me, at the end of the year, she would be moving back to New Mexico. It had never occurred to me I might be one of her only friends and she must have been lonely, so far from home and so far from the mainstream, stylistically.
How blind I was! How oblivious! Of course she was transferring home! In a whole year of discussions, I never learned why she had chosen to come across the country to attend college in Pennsylvania. I should have asked. I should have tried to understand her situation, or tried to help. I should have invited her home for Thanksgiving. I learned later she had stayed in the dorm, herself, over the holiday.

*****

I thought I had seen the last of Maura when the school year ended. So I was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter inviting me to visit her in Albuquerque.
“That’s nice,” said my mother. “You never mentioned having a girlfriend.”
Doubtless blushing, I said: “She’s really just someone I know.”
Initially, I declared I wouldn’t go. But I had a terrible summer job and the idea of leaving it for a week appealed. My mother encouraged me to visit my older brother in Los Angeles, and stop to see Maura for several days on the way back. The idea gelled. There is cachet, after all, in saying: “I’m visiting a girl in Albuquerque,” and I definitely needed some cachet.
During the weeks leading up to the visit, Maura and I exchanged several letters. They were chattier and more familiar than our spoken exchanges. She was apparently not the last to find me wittier and more expressive in writing than in person. “I just broke up with a rodeo rider,” she wrote. “He moved back in with his wife and kid.”
“I’ll do what I can to cheer you up,” I wrote back, jauntily.
“It’ll be nice to have a friendly shoulder to lean on,” she wrote.
“Anything you need,” I wrote back, feeling like a knight in shining armor.
The following week, she wrote: “You’ve become such a special friend to me. I can’t wait to see you and give you a squeeze.”
“I’ll do some extra push-ups,” I wrote back, like a dork. “Don’t want to disappoint.”
Having managed to complete high school and the first year of college without ever going on a date, I did not envision myself as Maura’s “boyfriend.” I would not have known exactly what that entailed, if I tried. Yet, I was beginning to think of her as more than just an acquaintance. I chose a pretty scarf as a gift for her instead of the Phillies tee-shirt, or something similar, I might have chosen a few weeks earlier.
By the time I walked off the plane I had butterflies in my stomach. Though I couldn’t recall ever touching Maura, even on the fingertips, I’d had weeks to picture a first hug, the promised squeeze, and who knows what else? (I certainly didn’t) It was hot in Albuquerque in August, I deduced. Perhaps, I hoped, she will be wearing something less oppressive than those hideous overalls. On the cusp of my twentieth birthday, I wondered if this visit would mark my evolution from awkward teen to young adult in some important way.
Maura indeed looked terrific approaching me in the small terminal, just as I’d hoped. Not only was she dressed in trim khakis and a pink blouse, she was even wearing contacts. I barely recognized her.  I felt an unfamiliar surge of adrenaline and my heart pounded. My habitual inhibitions barely kept me from running the last fifty feet, like in a movie, to claim my hug. Good thing. Maura greeted me with a smile, but that was all. She motioned to a nearby man in a cowboy hat, Wrangler jeans, boots and a mustache.
“That’s Jack,” she said, fawning. “We got back together last night. My mom and brother are home; they can’t wait to meet you.”
Jack looked about forty to me, though I now realize he may have only been twenty-seven. I had the sense of meeting the Marlboro Man in the flesh. His crushing handshake nearly ended my goaltending career. We squeezed into the front of his pick-up truck, Jack, Maura essentially on his lap and me against the passenger door, more superfluous than an appendix.
At home, after introducing me to her mother and eleven-year-old brother, Billy, Maura looked ill-at-ease. “I feel awful about this,” she said, “but would you really mind if Jack and I go out. Billy would love to play some basketball with you.”
She did not look like she felt awful at all, just excited to be free. It seemed my entry to young adulthood was still on hold, while I experienced the familiar lifestyle of an eleven-year-old. Billy and I shot baskets in the driveway until my hands calloused, then watched sports on television. In the evening, Maura’s mom made chili and took me on a drive around the University of New Mexico.
I think Maura returned home that night, but I’m not certain, since I didn’t see her at breakfast the next morning. Her mom took me and Billy to the top of a mountain where the view was spectacular, and I recall a tram-ride down. That evening, she took us out for a steak dinner. I had the impression she found me, a literature major from Philadelphia, who did not even own a pair of jeans, as exotic as Maura was at Dickinson.
The next day, Billy was busy with friends, so Maura’s mother drove me to Santa Fe. On the way, I saw canyons and buttes and washes, and spectacular cloud formations. It was like living inside a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. I recall enjoying the day immensely; there was certainly an element of relief to spend the day sightseeing with a kind, middle-aged tour guide instead of trying to comprehend my diminished standing with Maura.
That evening, while I was playing basketball with Billy, I overheard snatches of a phone conversation inside the adjacent kitchen:
“He is your guest…. Maura…. This isn’t right. Today was fine, but…. Listen to me…. Yes, you should.  Okay, ‘bye.”
Maura’s mom opened the front door, and said to me:
“Maura and Jack will be by in a few minutes. They’re going to take you to the movies with them.”
“Can I go, too?” asked Billy. “Can I?”
She looked at me.
“I don’t mind,” I said. I felt loyal to Billy.
When the pick-up arrived we all squeezed into the front seat, and proceeded to the local theater to see “Murder by Death.” My companion, essentially, was Billy, while Maura and Jack canoodled in the dark. Afterwards, they dropped Billy and me off at home before heading out to a bar. It was a relief to be returned to the airport by Maura’s mother the next day. I thanked her for her hospitality and asked her to say “good-bye” to Maura for me.
On reflection, I don’t miss the awkwardness of that period of life at all. In the days before Facebook, it was possible to say good-bye, and never hear from, or of, a person again.  And, sometimes, that is perfectly okay.

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Categories Coming of Age, perspective

KAREN’S STORY

October 7, 2013 //
1

The story below is true in most major ways, as related to me by a friend.
KAREN’S STORY
All her life she had wanted to become a teacher and now the final stages of the journey were to begin. Fall, 1975 Class registration at Stony Brook, however, delivered a shock. There was not to be an education “major” anymore. “How can this be?” said Karen, with despair.
She went home and entered the foyer feeling frustrated.
“How did it go?” asked her mother
“Terribly,” said Karen. “They’ve dropped education as a major. I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s a shame,” said her mother. “Is that permanent?”
“The lady at registration said they will try to reinstate it, but for now, who knows?”
“I’m sure they will,” said her mother. “Meanwhile, get started with your freshman classes. I’m sure something will work out. And when the department is reinvigorated, you’ll be the first in line.”
Karen was not so sure, but she was anxious to begin college. “In the meantime,” her mother continued, “you can make friends and try out college life.
Karen agreed and bustled off to her classes with enthusiasm and new notebooks. One day, near the end of her first week, she saw a flyer on the Union notice-board touting a meeting of the Red Balloon Society: “If you are unhappy, and want to fix the situation, join us,” it said. This, she surmised, was an organization dedicated to education issues, to speeding the resumption of the education major. Karen jotted down the time and place of the meeting. Typical of her, she decided to bake some cookies to take with her.
When she arrived at the meeting, in a small classroom off the main lobby, Karen was surprised to find herself the least hairy person in the room, though the room filled mostly with men.
“Welcome,” said one, a scraggly beard halfway down his chest. He looked at Karen from head-to-toe, taking in her Dorothy Hamell hairdo, the loafers on her feet, and her favorite dress, the one with all the flowers.
“Hi,” said Karen. “Is this the meeting about the education situation?”
“Definitely,” he said. “Not only education, but workers’ rights, the environment, inequality, everything.”
“That’s great,” said Karen. She offered her cookies.
“Cool,” said several of the guys, descending to the plate like locusts. “Any hash in these?” asked a girl dressed in battered jeans and a shawl.
“Oh, no,” said Karen. “That’s funny.”
The girl shrugged, unamused.
“Okay, everyone,” announced another student, a man with a ponytail and earrings in both ears. “Listen up. We have several events coming up and we need to be organized. Who’s in for demonstrating at the dean’s office Tuesday?”
“I’ll do it,” said one.
“I can’t,” said a girl. “I’ve got a pottery class.”
“Maybe I can,” said another.
“Hey, everyone,” said Karen, perking up. “Why don’t we write down who can come and who can’t. Maybe we can have sign-up sheets for each event.”
“Yeah,” said the first man who’d spoken. “The chick is right. Let’s have a sign up.”
So it went, eight or nine attendees gathered around Karen, signing up for activities and munching cookies. That evening, Karen was excited to tell her mother about the meeting.
“You won’t believe this,” she said, “but they couldn’t stop complimenting me for my leadership abilities and organizational skills.”
“Your leadership?” said her mother, eyebrow raised.
“Yes, they appointed me vice-chairman,” said Karen.
“Don’t they vote for that sort of thing?” asked her mother.
“They don’t really believe in votes,” said Karen. “Jimmy, the Commissioner, he’s in charge, and he appointed me.”
“A commissioner?” said her mother. “I never heard of that.”
“It was something like that,” said Karen. “Anyway, I think I’ll make a red velvet cake for next week’s meeting. They all really like the color red.”
“What did they say about the education department?” asked her mother.
“Oh,” said Karen. “We didn’t get around to it. We were really busy with introductions and the sign-ups and all. They talked a lot about marching and demonstrating, though. They’re really dedicated.”
“That’s good,” said her mother, “I guess.”
The second and third meetings proceeded similarly. There was chaos, then Jimmy called everyone to order, and Karen signed people up to activities that Jimmy listed on a blackboard.
“Did you hear about Peter?” asked a girl at the third meeting.
“He’s suspended,” said Jimmy. “He got caught pissing in the dean’s mail-box.”
“Right on,” said a black guy in the back.
“That’s awful,” said Karen, looking stunned. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“’Cause that dean’s a tool of the system. He’s the man.”
“I don’t get it,” said Karen. “I know he’s a man, but urinating in his mail-box is not nice.”
“He’s not a man. He’s the man.”
“Yeah,” said several of the others.
Karen was confused. Each week they seemed to enjoy whatever food Karen brought, and they seemed to appreciate how Karen kept them organized, but all they talked about were demonstrations and other nasty things; they never discussed the education department. Also, Karen did not feel welcome to attend their activities outside of the meetings, and she was never invited to socialize by anyone.
“How about if I come to the “Books not Bombs” march at the physics lab on Saturday,” said Karen. “Finally, we’re doing something concerning education.”
“Um, we really don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Jimmy. “It could get violent.”
That evening, at home, Karen expressed her unhappiness to her mother. She could not make sense of the meetings.
“I’m not sure they even like me,” she said.
“Sure they do, honey,” said her mother. “It’s just that they sound very serious about the issues and, you’ll forgive me for saying, you’ve never really been much of an issues person.”
“I know,” said Karen. “I feel really bad about it, but I think I’m going to quit.”
“At least take a break,” said her mother. “Maybe you can help at the library or something, and meet some nice kids.”
Karen turned her attention to her classwork and found some friends to share meals. At the end of the term, she was delighted to hear that the education major was reinstated. Karen signed up for courses with enthusiasm and became a successful student of educational theories, learning strategies and curriculum development. Her time in the Red Balloon Society was nearly forgotten, until….
FOUR YEARS LATER:
“What do you mean, you can’t hire me?” said Karen. “I have a 3.4 GPA and almost all A’s in education.”
“It’s your associations,” said the principal. “Believe me,” she added, looking at Karen’s anguished expression, “no one is more surprised to find out than I.”
“What associations? Surprised about what?” asked Karen.
“Well, you must have known this would come up. The background check disclosed you were the vice-commissar of the communist club in college,” said the principal.
“Hunh?” said Karen.
“The undercover agent at the Red Balloon Society at the time said no one would have come to the meetings if it weren’t for you. Here’s a quote from the file. ‘Jimmy Steinberg, the Commissar, said of Karen: that chick is really cooking good stuff.’”
“The Red Balloon Society was communist?” said Karen.
“Here’s another quote, from a guy named Peter, a suspected bomb-maker: ‘That Karen girl, she’s got all the recipes.’”
“He’s talking about brownies,” said Karen, reddening.
“Brownies?” said the principal. “Not bombs?”
“Of course not,” said Karen.
“Weren’t you a communist?” asked the principal.
“No, I’m a democrat,” said Karen. “There must be a misunderstanding.”
“I’ll say,” said the principal.
EPILOGUE: Karen’s days as an accidental campus radical were eventually explained. She obtained a position in the Long Island schools, where she taught for thirty years, widely praised for excellence in teaching as well as baking. Co-workers knew her brownies as “to die for,” but only in the best, non-violent sense of the phrase.

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Categories Coming of Age

SMOKING

September 9, 2013 //
1

SMOKING

I took my first puff when I was about eight. It was also my last puff. I was in the breakfast room when my mother gave me a cigarette and I still remember the resulting coughing fit. How she devised this anti-smoking strategy, I never knew, but it certainly was effective.
My disdain for all things tobacco prevailed throughout my youth as I helped to badger my father into limiting his habit to the outdoors and, eventually, to forswear it altogether. As a young adult, I despised the smell on my clothing and did not hold back expressing my feelings to co-workers. My family happened to be traveling in 1991 on the first day smoking was banned on airline flights in America and I was interviewed by a local television station at the San Francisco Airport. I’m sure I said something pithy about my relief that the scourge of smoking on airplanes was finally over. Think about it; it has only been twenty-two years since fellow passengers could light up in an airplane under the ridiculous fiction that their odious odors were confined to the rear.
We were clear on the issue of smoking in raising our children. When they were little, they were not allowed to refer to any other person as “stupid,” but an exception was made with my wife Katie’s somewhat reluctant assent. If we passed a smoker on the street or were in line at a store when someone purchased cigarettes, our young children were encouraged (by me, at least) to declare aloud, “they’re stupid.” Their synapses were, thus, effectively wired. In restaurants, I was apt to wave a napkin conspicuously in the direction of puffers. Fortunately, that is rarely necessary anymore.
I’d always maintained I would never date a smoker or even an ex-smoker. Besides the fact of the smell and filth of the habit, I felt it evidenced a serious character flaw. A smoker was idiotic, and/or unable to resist peer pressure, and/or suicidal. My determination lasted until I met a Greek airline attendant during an otherwise bleak vacation in Paris (well, we weren’t technically “dating”) and, several years later, further gave way when I learned that Katie had, in fact, smoked while she was in college, a decade before we were married. Yes, I can be flexible.
Barry Goldwater once stated: “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” I adapt his thinking to the issue of smoking, namely: “Intolerance in distaste for the indefensible is no vice.” Rarely exposed to indoor smoke for decades, imagine my shock during a recent drive through South Carolina. I stopped for breakfast at a luxurious Waffle House and, in what seemed almost choreographed, all the surrounding patrons lit up around me just as my pecan waffle arrived. Apparently, the ban that adheres in Charleston’s lovely establishments does not extend state-wide.
Now that they have taken us back to 1963 in so many ways, I hope the nuts in our North Carolina legislature don’t get any new ideas.

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Categories Coming of Age, Parenting

COLLEGE SPORTS, A MEMOIR

August 19, 2013 //
3

COLLEGE SPORTS,

A MEMOIR Picture the excitement of a famous sports rivalry:  Ohio State versus Michigan in football in front of 105,000 screaming fans and millions more on television; North Carolina versus Duke in basketball in front of 20,000 “crazies” and millions more on television; and, Dickinson versus F & M in soccer in front of 75 friends and relatives.  In which do you think I might have played a major role?

Yes, back in the mid-late 1970’s I was a stalwart member of the Dickinson College squad.  As the goaltender, it required some degree of failure by all ten of my teammates for me to see action.  Unfortunately, I often received an extensive workout. It was a simpler time.  While present-day sports coverage is concerned more with drugs, arrests and contract negotiations than game action, one need only return to the 1970’s to find a time that now appears quaint.  Notre Dame had a national television deal and Big-Ten football attracted 100,000-plus fans to games, but at a small college, playing sports was still a hobbyist’s undertaking.

The goal was not to become famous or rich.  Rather, most of us simply enjoyed the game. There is little recorded proof I played soccer at Dickinson except for a few photographs of me taken by the Carlisle Evening Sentinel that my wife was kind enough to frame, and several blurbs cut from the school paper, the Dickinsonian.  If our team had an annual picture taken, I don’t have it.

Soccer was anything but a year-round activity in the 1970’s unless, I imagine, one lived in Brazil.  I never owned a soccer ball but, fortunately, a nearby teammate had one, and we would commence preparing for the fall season around August 20 each year, ten days before official practices began.  Since I was a goalie and he was a forward, our outings were efficient.  He shot and I saved.  I didn’t deign to run, though there may have been an occasional jog, and I am certain I never lifted a weight. In contrast, the daughter of a friend plays at Dickinson now.  Typical of the modern player she “works out” all year, plays for a club team in New Jersey during the “off-season,” and travels with her Dickinson teammates to Brazil or Scotland for extensive pre-season training.  When I played, we were lucky if an informal scrimmage was scheduled with Shippensburg State, thirty minutes away, before the regular schedule began.

The foregoing does not mean I didn’t “care.”   In fact, I spent sleepless hours pondering my performances and had butterflies in my stomach before every game.  Yet, we played in an informational vacuum.  Twenty years before the internet, we knew nothing about our opponents or where we stood in the standings.  An out-of-date and/or incomplete mimeograph was posted in the locker room that showed, for example, Haverford to have three wins and two ties or Western Maryland to have two wins and three losses, but that might be after ten games had been played.

The only definitive feelings my teammates and I had about other teams was that it was important to beat Gettysburg College and Franklin & Marshall. Did I know anyone at either of those schools?  No.  Had either of those schools harmed me personally?  No.  I was simply told they were our “rivals” and, accordingly, I developed seasonal animus against both institutions.  My level of disdain did not enter my bloodstream with the hate of an Auburn fan for Alabama, but mentally, I focused on those two games. During my four seasons at Dickinson, we always won the “Battle of Gettysburg.”  A history major on our squad likened our dominance to the Union’s defense against Pickett’s charge, though the analogy may be strained in terms of comparative bloodshed.

Still, a perfect record against the Gettysburg satisfied.  F & M, however, presented the flip side of the coin. My debut as a freshman occurred on their field when they knocked our senior goaltender out of the game, literally and figuratively, en route to a 4-0 rout.  He staggered off after the fourth goal holding his arm at an odd angle which made me unenthused about taking his place.  Mercifully, the game was nearly over, and I survived.  The next two seasons, though I was the starting goaltender, I don’t recall specifics, except that we lost.

Senior year loomed as my last chance to give those pre-meds (F & M’s reputed specialty) their own medicine. The first thing I recall is that “The Big F & M Game” occurred on a Saturday afternoon immediately after the LSAT’s.  Thus, as an English major with no other post-graduation employment ideas, my day consisted of two major events, one of which could determine my life’s direction.  I took the exam dressed in my soccer uniform, and then ran half a mile from the test-site to arrive at the field before the opening whistle.

When I arrived, with my head still processing the switch from testing to goaltending, our coach, Bill Nickey,  approached me individually on the sideline, just as I prepared to run onto the field.  He looked ashen:  “They’ve got an All-American,” he said.

Coach Nickey was typical of soccer coaches of that era, in that he had never played soccer.  He taught physical education at Carlisle High School and made extra money by coaching our team, which he was “qualified” to do by virtue of having attended a seminar or two.  He was honest about his inexperience and intimidated to a ludicrous extent by college students, so he rarely offered individual advice.  Typically, he would just urge us, as a group, to “play hard,” “don’t give up,” and “keep going.”

“Which one is he?” I asked, looking at the opposition as they jogged onto the field.

“I don’t know,” said Coach Nickey.  “But their coach told me they got a letter yesterday.”

I couldn’t imagine what sort of skill level would earn someone “All-American” status.   Along with several teammates, I had earned honorable mention or second-team honors in our humble league.  But All-American?  That sounded big.

“Are we going to put someone on him?” I asked, hoping Coach Nickey had a plan.

“Should we?” he asked. His response didn’t surprise me.

“That’s what we did in high school when the other team had a dominant player,” I said.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” said my coach, as though I had said something profound.  “But who?”

“What about Bobby?” I said, referring to our captain, our best player.

“But then we won’t have Bobby on offense, and how are we going to score?” asked Coach Nickey.

He had a point.  If we neutralized their best player with ours, we probably forfeited our own chance to score.  “What about Pete or John?” I asked, referring to two of our defenders.

“Do you think they could stick with an All-American?” asked our coach, clearly skeptical.

I glanced at Pete, who was fiddling with the tie-string on his shorts.  John had just spilled his water cup and was drying off his shoes.  I’d never seen an All-American in person, but I was also doubtful. “We could play him straight-up,” I said.  “We could rise to his level.”

Coach Nickey brightened.  The prospect of our team inspired to new heights by the mere sight of an All-American appealed to both of us.  A movie soundtrack swelled in my mind.

“Sure we could,” he said.  “Why not?  Nothing gets past you today!”

We both sensed, I think, this was the moment where he should clop me on the back and send me out to do battle.   No clop occurred; although we’d known each other for four years, Coach Nickey was not physically demonstrative.   I jogged to my position un-clopped and wondered how long it would take to identify the superstar.

Not long at all, as it turned out.  A wiry fellow with long blond curls, wearing Number 10, was the exclusive focus of F & M’s attack.  “Pass it to Scott!” they yelled.  “Find Scott!”  The first time he received the ball, he cut through our players like a steak knife through butter.  Only moments after the opening whistle, he blasted a shot from twenty yards that eluded my outstretched arm and barely missed the corner of the goal.  I retrieved the ball from out-of-bounds as slowly as possible. “Could we stall for seventy-nine more minutes?” I wondered.

As the game unfolded, Scott seemed reluctant to dominate to the extent he was capable.  He dribbled the ball around the middle of the field, making my teammates flail, but whenever he approached our end, he either weakly shot from far away, or he passed to one of his significantly less-talented teammates.   Meanwhile, the minutes ticked away and I became comfortable, as though a major hurricane threatened, but I enjoyed the lull nonetheless. With the game scoreless at halftime, Coach Nickey, referring to no plan of which I was aware, declared:  “Our defensive scheme is working.”

I felt the only reason we were still tied was Scott’s inexplicable reluctance to finish. The second half proceeded similarly.  Scott played with our midfielders like a cat with mice, but seemed disinclined to attack our goal.  The game seemed headed to a scoreless tie.  The goaltender has more opportunity to daydream than any other player, and I contemplated my description of the game to an imaginary press conference:  “I shut-out F & M and their All-American forward.”  “The All-American was really great, but he couldn’t put one past me.”  “Yes, Scott at F & M was tough, but I could handle his shots.”

My reverie broke with just a minute remaining when Scott streaked down the left side with the ball.  He evaded three of our weaker players and made Bobby swing and miss.  The only player between him and me was John, one of our lumbering defenders.  “Pass, Scott, pass,” I tried to convince him telepathically.  But Scott had apparently decided to assert himself.  He faked one way and went the other, leaving John to grasp at air.  He bore down upon me as I angled to protect the twenty-four foot cage.

Everything seemed to slow almost to a stop, with eerie silence, as Scott readied to rip a shot from several yards away.  I remember the ball had red and white octagonal checks.  I remember seeing one of Scott’s teammates out of the corner of my eye running down the right side.  I wondered for a split second, that seemed like a minute, if I should worry about him.  I remember the sky was brilliantly blue and Scott had a smear of black reflection paint beneath each of his eyes. I remember his teeth protruded slightly. Finally, I registered the thud of his foot hitting the ball and its flight towards the left corner of the goal.  I did not think I could reach it.  It seemed futile as I thrust myself into the air and flung my left arm as far as I could.  The shot was powerful.

In the microsecond that I had to consider it, I knew even if I reached the ball, I might not be able to hit it hard enough to keep it out of the goal.  Yet, if I made a fist instead of just using my fingertips, the inch or two I would concede would be the difference between touching the ball and missing it completely. My desperate dive enabled me to contact the ball with several fingertips, firmly.

Yes!  The ball was redirected and falling to the ground, slowly, but still dribbling towards the goalpost.  Would it be in or out?  In or out?  How can a split second take so long?  I felt my eyes widen.  I landed on my ribs in the dirt, helpless.  The ball hit the inside edge of the post and nestled, ever so delicately, into the net.  I had not shut out the All-American.  I closed my eyes as the F & M players hugged Scott.

I’m not sure where this memory falls in the big picture.  It’s probably not important; it was just a small college soccer game, after all.  Nonetheless, thirty-five years later, so many feelings are encapsulated in that final shot:  hope; excitement; fear; effort; triumph; and, ultimately, failure.

Intellectually, I realize sports rivalries are mere diversions, without real-life meaning.  To think otherwise would be immature, even ridiculous.  Yes, I understand that completely.  In the interest of honesty, however, I acknowledge that when my children compiled lists of colleges to consider, I vetoed Franklin & Marshall.  And, if I have any say in the choices made by theoretical grandchildren someday, I expect to feel the same way.

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Categories Coming of Age, soccer, Sports

IN VIRGIN TERRITORY

July 13, 2013 //
1

IN VIRGIN TERRITORY

 

I admit I was a bit of a slow starter.  I headed to law school in 1978 at the age of twenty-one with as much experience with the opposite sex as a typical thirteen-year-old.  Nowadays, the level of knowledge I had at that time might match that of an eleven-year-old.  While I could try to blame this situation on a variety of circumstances and other people, it was largely of my own making, owing to a mix of traits, interests and hang-ups that I did not understand at the time.  Still, an opportunity of sorts managed to arise.

Following college graduation, I found myself at home for one last summer.  My parents would have supported me, regardless, but I reluctantly agreed it was necessary to engage in some sort of employment, even though previous summers of misery had included alphabetizing in a library, typing for the U.S. Corps of Engineers (the “Corpse”) and umpiring adult softball (early lessons in the misery of humanity).  These experiences were so tedious and unpleasant that my expectations for meaningful and useful work were nil.  When a friend advised of an opening for an assistant to the manager at a nearby dinner theatre, I thought to myself:  “That might not be too bad; I can learn something about business and see some shows while I’m at it.”

After several phone calls, I scheduled an interview with a man named Robert, whose family owned the Suburban Dinner Theatre and a variety of businesses throughout the Philadelphia area.    Dressed as I was, in a blue blazer and tie over grey slacks, I was surprised to note that he was only a year or two older than I, and accessorized his all-jeans outfit with an earring and ponytail.  On his feet were clogs.  It was quite an ensemble.  We took the measure of each other, as follows:

“I manage this place and I can use you two or three days a week,” he said.  He spread out his arms expansively, indicating the theatre, the buffet and dining rooms, the offices and the vast lobby.  The décor was faux Roman, with hollow plaster gladiators glowering from every corner.

“Okay,” I replied, relieved not to work full-time.

“I don’t know what you’ll be doing, but my friggin’ brother at the theatre downtown has an assistant, so I’m gonna have one, too,” said Robert.

“Okay,” I said, feeling a bit more commoditized than I’d expected.

“I don’t understand why dad gives him the big theatre and I’m stuck out here,” he said, apparently talking to himself. “Can you drive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Come in tomorrow at ten and I’ll figure out something.  I’ll pay you six dollars an hour and, ah, lose the jacket and tie.”

“Will I have anything to do with the shows?” I asked, hopeful.

“Nah,” he replied.  “This’ll just be daytime crap.”

Thus began my entry to the business world and to the concept of “make-work.”  I’d already learned from my summer of government employment that it is important to “look busy” while trudging through a pile of letters.  And I’d learned from the library that a low-intensity job sometimes affords the opportunity to read a magazine “on the clock,” while seeming to be involved in filing.  But the idea of completely making up things to do was new.   To his credit, Robert was initially resourceful at finding tasks for completion where none were readily apparent.

During the first morning on the job, I drove a van to three far-flung hardware stores in search of the components necessary to install a chain in front of a side entrance to prevent illegal parking.  One store had the proper gauge of chain, another the hue of silver paint that Robert deemed most visible,  another the piece of metal on which I would write “No Entry” and the type of marker that could write permanently upon a piece of painted metal.

The afternoon project involved vacuuming ceiling vents in the dining room deemed too difficult to access by the janitorial staff.  Only in retrospect did I realize how dangerous it was for me, inexperienced and unprotected by any safety measures whatsoever, to be reaching to the ceiling with a dust-buster from the top of a rickety ladder.

“Here’s a good project for you,” Robert announced on my second day.  “We need some additional feathers for the Showboat production.  See where you can find six ostrich feathers, four eagle feathers and eight striped feathers.  I don’t care what kind of bird.”

I looked at him and determined he was serious.

“You can use that phone,” he said, pointing across his office to an empty desk, and handing me a thick book called “The Yellow Pages.”  It may be difficult for a youthful current-day reader to believe, but “The Yellow Pages” and a telephone were the go-to research tools in the late 1970’s.

While I pored over “theatrical costumes” and “decorator’s accessories” sections, Robert resumed his phone conversation:

“Yeah, I’m sorta working this afternoon…. Haha, I have an assistant now, what a riot….  Okay, baby, I’ll pick you up later.  Love ya.”  Turning his attention back to me, Robert said:

“Man, my lady-friends are driving me crazy.  I have to juggle several; it’s stressful.  I have to go get a massage to relax.   Anyway, after you get the feathers, leave ‘em in my office and call it a day.  See ya.”

I located the requisite feathers after an hour of calling.  Before I left his office, I noticed that Robert’s desk was filled with photographs of himself with a variety of attractive women.   Driving the van downtown to gather the feathers, I pondered unhappily how cavalierly virtuosic Robert was with the vagaries of social life while I, confident of superior intellect and eventual professional prospects, was essentially learning disabled.   It was as though he were winning a race while I was still at the starting line.

Robert greeted me the next workday with a broad smile.  I should have been suspicious.  “I’m running out of important projects for daytime work, but I’ve found you a position in show biz,” he said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said, “it’s an evening position, during the show.  You can do what my dad had me do as my first job outta college.  You’ll be the liquor checker.”

I doubtless looked perplexed while he continued:  “We have a service bar that makes the drinks for the audience.  We suspect the bartender and some of the girls are rippin’ us off by providing some drinks on the side.  So you just gotta match up the drinks on their tray with the drinks listed on the check.  If the table buys six drinks, make sure there ain’t eight going out.  And if the bill says it’s a standard cocktail, make sure the glass isn’t filled with ‘top shelf.’”

“How do you tell the difference?” I asked.

“’Top shelf’ is the good stuff.  Customers gotta pay extra for it.”

“Doesn’t it look the same in the glass?” I asked.

“That doesn’t matter.  You just have to act like you know the difference,” he said, delivering to me an important real-life lesson.  So many times in my eventual career as a lawyer, it was at least as necessary to project knowledge, as it was to actually have knowledge.

Robert walked with me to the liquor bar located adjacent to the buffet.  He explained the routine: patrons arrived before the show for a buffet dinner.  During dinner and intermission, they could obtain soft drinks for no additional charge, but alcoholic drinks were ordered from the waitresses who circulated through the dining room during the show.  On a good night, there were two to three hundred patrons spread around twenty to thirty tables of ten.  The staff consisted of eight-twelve women, depending on the anticipated size of the crowd, and one or two bartenders.

There were three double-edged “perks” of employment in the service bar.  Foremost on employees’ minds were that, after intermission, we were effectively “done” for the evening and were free to attack the buffet.  Unfortunately, the menu never changed, so one gorged on the same rolls, chicken cordon bleu, rice pilaf and salad every night, topped off with Sarah Lee cheesecake.

The second “perk” was that one could hear the music from the show.  However, since the show for the entire summer was Showboat, one’s enthusiasm quickly flagged on a nightly diet of “Captain Andy, Captain Andy, he makes the world seem like a bowl of candy.”

The third perk, for me, at least, was the concentrated opportunity to study female anatomy.  The set-up of the service bar was that the waitresses entered through a swinging door at the far end of the room, obtained their drinks from the bartender there, presented payment to a cashier in the middle of the room, and passed out a swinging door directly in front of me after I perused the contents of their trays.

Like an adolescent boy, my evaluation of female beauty had been based almost entirely on faces up to that point, with only an emerging interest in parts below.  This job, however, promoted appreciation not only of the front, but also legs and rears.  The staff did not have a fixed uniform, just a black and white color scheme.  Most of the women found it profitable, tip-wise, and perhaps, more comfortable in the bustle of work, to wear the shortest of shorts and the skimpiest of tee-shirts.  All of the women were in their early twenties except for one middle-aged woman named Trudy, who was trim, but chose to wear slacks.

The drawbacks of the job were also clear.  First, most of my co-workers smoked.  And the nightly race to sell drinks and earn tips, with contests and bonuses among them, created a casino-type atmosphere of tension that encouraged their habit.  Not only did they light up constantly, but they left their butts smoldering in ash trays while they circulated through the dining room.   The resulting stench in the service bar was akin to Dante’s most hellish levels.  Second, and impossible to overcome, was that my position was to act as management’s spy.   The honest waitresses hated my snooping and the dishonest simply hated me.

The middle-aged bartenders, both of whom looked indistinguishable from Tony Orlando, complete with smarmy moustaches, regarded me with supreme disinterest.

“So kid,” one said shortly after I began there, “you think you’re gonna get laid this summer?”

“Um, I hadn’t really planned one way or the other,” I said, trying to convey that I had a choice in the matter.

“It’s like shootin’ ducks in a barrel,” he said.  “For me, at least.”

Luckily, the summer passed quickly.   My mind was preoccupied with starting law school and the job did not require deep concentration.   Either there was less corruption than Robert thought, or I was really bad at uncovering it, but I never had to “rat out” one of the girls.  Gradually, a rapport developed with several so that conversations were, at least, civil.  While some never spoke to me beyond what was necessary, most accepted that I was “simply doing my job,” and had not chosen to treat them like criminals for fun.  I recognized most of them were headed towards lives of lower-middle-class struggle while I was in a position to achieve upper-middle-class comfort, and I made certain never to gloat.

Even among the waitresses who spoke to me without an edge, there was absolutely no flirtation.  Though they were more aware than anyone that my eyes would doubtless be following their movement, particularly after the drinks were counted, when they passed out the door in front of me, they rarely established eye contact.  Their manner of speech, laced with profanity and “dems” and “dozes,” combined with tawdry hairdos and tattoos, (before tattoos somehow became fashionable) indicated a huge gulf in our respective backgrounds.  One or two attended community college or beauty school, but they flaunted their bodies as their main assets.

It was as though these women/girls were saying:  “We know you have an education and will have a nice car and a nice house and probably there’s a prissy little school teacher out there for you somewhere, but what you can’t have is this – our bodies are great and you’ll never touch anything as good.”  At the time, I would have completely agreed with that assessment.  In fact, I would have been relieved to know the little teacher was out there somewhere for me.

Every Saturday night, after the show, the staff went to a local bar for drinks.  I was never invited to join them and, for that, I was relieved.   I had no interest in socializing with them, breathing more of their smoke, and staying out past midnight discussing soap opera plots or their real-life awful boyfriends.  But in honor of my last night of employment, one of the girls graciously said: “for a company dick, you ain’t so bad,” and invited me to join them after work.  “We’ll treat,” she said.

We went to the Muddy Duck, a hole-in-the-wall bar near the St. Joseph’s College campus.  At first, the evening proceeded as I’d expected.  I nursed a beer as slowly as possible while my surrounding co-workers drank themselves silly.  Any landscaper or gas station attendant who walked in thought I was the luckiest man alive.  We all sat at a large, oval table.  I was next to Trudy, who alternately talked about living with her cancer-stricken mother, chain-smoked, and consumed pints.  Compared to all the twenty-two-year-olds in hot pants, Trudy had never caught my attention.  When a man is twenty-one, women over forty who are not relatives, rarely enter consciousness.

So it was particularly surprising when I turned towards Trudy at one point and found her open mouth bearing down upon mine.  I sensed an uproar of laughter and cheers around me as Trudy landed upon me on the bench and surrounded me with a noxious cocktail of cheap perfume, nicotine and beer.

“I’ll take you to the restroom and give you a real treat,” she rasped over the commotion.  “You should have something to remember from the summer.”

I felt embarrassment and panic that nearly made me faint.  My mind internally ran through a litany of jumbled moral babble:  “We are not dating; we are not even friends; this will be immediately regretted by both of us; somewhere my future wife will be cheated, etc.”   I must admit, I doubt if any of these objections would have overcome an offer from one of the younger girls.

“I can’t,” I said.  “I’m sorry.  I mean, I’d like to….”

Trudy leaned back and regarded me with deep hurt in her eyes.  I felt terrible.   She may not have been sober enough to fully consider the ramifications, but she was offering something that would have constituted a landmark in my life.  Fortunately, most of the girls around the table had turned their attention away from us, but I was still reeling.

“I understand,” said Trudy, after a moment.  “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

It wasn’t long before the gathering began to break up.  Everyone wished me “good luck,” and I was free to go.  I remember taking a deep breath in the parking lot before entering my car.  Nearly all the memories of that summer submerged instantaneously and completely; now that they have bubbled back to the surface for examination, I believe I made the right decision.

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Categories Coming of Age, Introversion, Reflections

ROOMMATE ISSUES — PART TWO

July 6, 2013 //
1

Dear Reader:

I am not sure how to follow up a story with tantric sex, so I’ve stepped back to a little effort at pure fiction.  The story below is part two of a story called “Roommate Issues”  the first installment of which was posted on this site on October 23, 2012.  It concerns the not-uncommon situation nowadays, where a basic suburban American kid at a middling college ends up with a foreign exchange student as a roommate.  Thanks for reading.

ROOMMATE ISSUES – PART TWO

Me and Nathan have almost finished the freshman year.  He’s acing science courses while I struggle with sociology, which is kind of embarrassing.  He hasn’t exactly helped my personal sociology, either, if you know what I mean.  I can’t bring a girl back to the room ‘cause he just hangs out and wants to talk about molecules or something.

I said to him one night:  “You gotta get out of the room sometimes.”

“Where should I go?” he asked.

“What if you went to the gym?  Do a little working out.  Add some muscle.”

He just looked at me kinda disappointed, and said:  “I’m not sure I’d know what to do.”

I wasn’t planning to be a saint or anything, but before I could even think about how it would go down, I said:  “How ‘bout if I take you the first time and show you the ropes.”

He grinned.  “Thank you so much.  I would like to see ropes.  Maybe I can take you to the chemistry lab with me sometime and I will show you what to do.”

“That’s okay, Nathan,” I said.  “No obligations.”

So, last month I took him to the gym.  Some of the guys looked at me a little funny when we walked in together but they can’t talk crap to me.  Not to brag too much, but I’m pretty much a regular there, and it shows.  Nathan, on the other hand, is a little lacking in the muscle department.  He hasn’t lifted anything heavier than a chemistry book his whole life.  I showed him what machines to try and wrote him up a little routine.  He took it real serious.

After that, much to my surprise, Nathan seemed to like the gym.  He even went on his own like every day last week.  The other night, he came back to the room all proud and announced:  “I’m growing bigger breasts.”

“Chest, Nathan,” I said.  “A man gets a bigger chest.”

He looked confused, so I pointed to the Kardashian poster on the wall.

“Women have breasts, I explained.  “Men have a chest.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Thank you for fixing me.”

I laughed at that one.

“Dogs get fixed, Nathan.  I’m just helping you.”

“Dogs?” he said, confused.

“Never mind,” I said.  I wasn’t sure how I’d explain that one.”

Overall, living with Nathan hasn’t been so bad.  He’s quiet and clean and always has things I can borrow when I run out, like toothpaste and shampoo.  I was even starting to think about asking where he’s rooming next year – maybe we’d stay together or something, when, get this, I come home from dinner last night and find him with a girl.  Yep, there he is sitting on his bed, dressed, next to a skinny girl whose glasses are larger than the rest of her head.

“I want you to meet Jhin,” he says, looking proud.

“Shin?” I try to repeat.

“Jhin,” he says.

She looks up at me and I get the whole picture.  She is probably the least attractive Asian girl I have ever seen.  She’s got zits and a gap between her teeth and eyes like saucers behind thick lenses.  She’s in a Mickey Mouse tee shirt and a pair of pants that look like my mom’s living room curtains.  She doesn’t say anything.  She just smiles up at me and I see they are holding hands.

“Oh my God,” I think.  “Nathan’s got a girlfriend.”

This is something I never expected.  Me and Nathan discuss a lot of stuff: food, music, sports and he tells me ninety-nine percent more about chemistry than I understand, but we never talk about girls.  Anyway, I guess it’s cool.  Why not?

“I meet Jhin at the gym,” he says.

“Aha,” I think to myself.  “That’s why he’s been going so much.”

“Do you work out?” I ask her.

“I work desk,” she says in a squeaky voice like a cartoon character.

Now I remember seeing her.  She checks i.d.’s and hands out towels.  So, like this is really awkward.  Am I supposed to stay and act like I’m studying, or is she going to leave, or what?  I walk over to my desk and turn on the computer.  I’m acting like I’m reading stuff but I’m really wondering if they are gonna leave, or if she’s gonna leave, or, God forbid, they’re gonna make out.  They whisper something to each other and Nathan says to me:

“Going to library now.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to make you leave,” I say, though I’m, like, really relieved.

When they get off the bed, I see Jhin looking up at him like he’s some sort of god.

“Wow,” I think, “this girl’s in love.”

“See you later,” says Nathan.  “Jhin has to do research on human connection to other spices.”

“Like cinnamon or pepper?” I ask.

“No,” says Jhin.  “Humans compared to monkeys or dolphins.”

“That’s ‘species,’” I say, trying not to laugh.  Man, Nathan cracks me up sometimes.

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Categories Coming of Age, Modern Society

INSPIRATION

June 19, 2013 //
8

INSPIRATION   Graduation speeches often acknowledge inspirational teachers.  A man recalls the steely grit of the small town historian who taught him how to understand the world.  A sculptor thanks her art history teacher for introducing her to beauty.  A scientist recalls the first thrill of discovery at the elbow of his high school chemistry teacher.   Now that I spend hours arranging words as an aspiring writer, I credit an English teacher, Mr. Elliot, as the most inspiring instructor I never had.  (That is not a typo). Due to the deterioration of Philadelphia’s public schools and my family’s disinclination to move, it was deemed necessary to enroll me in private school in the seventh grade.   After considering the local choices, most of which were objectionably religious and/or all-boys, we selected Friends’ Academy.  Nominally Quaker, the co-ed school was effectively non-sectarian.  The administration strove to promote every liberal ideal, including open-mindedness and inclusivity.  Who could object to that, especially during the tumultuous Vietnam War years of 1968-1974, when I attended? In practice, openness to all ideas meant my classmates were encouraged at every opportunity to be non-conformists; in their non-conformity, they achieved near-total conformity.  In retrospect, I was the one who was “out there,” wearing my hair short and my shoes on, forsaking protests for baseball, and attending classes alone on school-sanctioned “cut-days.”  I felt that my parents had paid for me to attend school, not to walk aimlessly around the quadrangle holding a sign.  I felt apart from my classmates, not yet able to pride myself as a person who did not succumb to peer pressure.  On the social level, for all its openness, I found Friends’ Academy oppressive. Despite my sense of social alienation I embraced the school’s shaping of my intellectual life.  Environmentalism resonated with me through an introduction to a ground-breaking (in 1969) recycling program.  Small class-size encouraged immersion in subjects like music theory and art that propelled lifelong interests.  Surrounded by wealthy classmates, I learned to detest hypocrisy, observing with a gimlet eye the conspicuous consumption of rich, Rolls Royce-driving bleeding hearts.  Having it both ways, I decried pandering when other bleeding-heart families steered faux-modest, Volvo hatchbacks with Gene McCarthy bumper-stickers, to and from their “Main Line” estates.  Certainly not perfect myself, I indulged a Holden Caulfield-like disdain for phonies.  After all, no book appeared so consistently on the summer reading list as “Catcher in the Rye.” The majority of the teachers at Friends’ Academy were superb.  I recall with particular admiration the ninth-grade teacher of a course called “Propaganda.”  Mr. Prager lasted only one year on his penurious salary, but left me (for better or worse) with a lifetime of skeptical political insights.  In tenth grade, Mr. Goldsmith taught medieval history so vividly one felt the tip of the lance when he described jousting.  Mr. Groff, dressed daily in his frayed 1933 varsity jacket, made participation on Friends’ Academy’s less-than-stellar sports teams seem as meaningful as suiting up for the Yankees.  His never-ebbing positive attitude combined integrity and antiquity so that one felt they were part of a virtuous continuum. Why do I not mention Mr. Elliot, the man who influenced me more than any other?  In delicious irony, despite a decided inclination towards liberality, Friends’ Academy utilized a class system as though they were monarchist.  Each grade was divided into three sections.   Section 1 consisted of students who were deemed true geniuses or legacies.  All had attended Friends’ Academy since kindergarten and had Ivy League connections (including the “Little Ivy” schools of Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, Wellesley, etc.)  via siblings, parents and grandparents.  Presumably, the Ivies also lay ahead for members of Section 1. Section 2, wherein I was placed, consisted of capable students who lacked overwhelming wealth of brains or money.  Section 3 consisted of the dummies, many of whom had wealth or legacy sufficient to gain admittance, but whose academic abilities or interests were demonstrably limited.  Section 3 also harbored athletes whose value to the school was measured in baskets scored, not Balzac explicated.  Each student in Sections 2 and 3 was keenly aware of the characteristics of his group and the absolute impossibility of upward mobility. Though some teachers taught classes at more than one level, the most experienced and legendary teachers taught only Section 1.  Mr. Elliot was, perhaps, the most accomplished of these “masters,” with a litany of awards, publications and honorary degrees generally confined to famous university-level academics.   His appearance was striking, too, with bushy black eyebrows and a full head of hair highlighting a larger-than-expected head, balanced precariously on a short, barrel-chested body.   His voice was a growl with hints of England tinged with fluency in Russian, the other language he taught.  (At Friends’ Academy, one could study Latin, Greek, German, French or Russian, but not Spanish – it was considered too easy). From my teenage perspective, I considered Mr. Elliot to be ancient, though he was probably only in his late-forties at the time.  Picture a swarthy and serious Robin Williams, his voice booming through the hallways.  Section 1 students reveled in describing lectures where he recited Beowolf or costumed himself as a peasant to perform Chekhov in the original Russian.  Recounting personally-witnessed Mr. Elliot anecdotes was an unsubtle affectation of membership in Section 1, like explaining the texture of crème brulee to barbarians eating Chips Ahoy. My exposure to Mr. Elliot was indirect.  My eleventh grade German class met in his classroom three hours each week, while his classes were elsewhere, no doubt reenacting scenes from Dr. Zhivago or building sets in the style of the original Shakespearean playhouse.  While Mrs. Springer, the German teacher, tried to interest me in the multiple layers of grammar (more words for “the” than Eskimoes have for snow) I focused on Mr. Elliot’s aphorisms written on construction paper tacked onto the classroom walls.  Each exhortation had the gravity of the Ten Commandments.  “Do not dangle participles.”  “Use parallel construction.” “A semi-colon cannot appear twice on one page.”  Basically, Strunk & White’s “Elements of Style” (also a standing member of the Summer Reading List) was reduced by Mr. Elliot to simple rules. One page, written in Mr. Elliot’s un-prettified block letters, that I immediately memorized, was titled the Black List:  “NEVER use the following words:  “Really, very, more, most, get, got, seems, might, good, better.”  From my first day in that classroom, I strove to eliminate unnecessary, imprecise fillers from my writing. Other precious pearls of Section 1 knowledge that I gleaned during German class were Mr. Elliot’s “necessary” vocabulary words.  He spread lists of SAT-type words in threesomes around the walls, such as “trite, banal, hackneyed” and “adamant, obdurate, indurate.”  I memorized these words together to the extent that I still annoy family members by reciting them on a regular basis.  They cringe if certain words are spoken in my presence because I launch into recitations that are “annoying, vexing and bothersome.” I used to imagine what it would be like to have Mr. Elliot as my English teacher.  I pictured a world of brilliant insights exploding like fireworks.    I do not claim the students in Section 1 were unworthy of their selection or that I was improperly left out.  Could I, or would I, have published a novel by tenth grade, as one of the “geniuses” did?  Did I choose to memorize the entire timetable of the London subway system, as did another?  No way.  I lacked sufficient curiosity and was resistant to learning a broad section of subjects.  If a book or lecture did not interest me, I shut down.  Literature, music and history commanded attention; science, math and foreign languages did not. Still, I was delighted when my eleventh grade English teacher arrived in class one day with Mr. Elliot in tow, introducing the elder luminary as our guest lecturer on The Brothers Karamazov.  “The novel represents the dual pinnacles of Mr. Elliot’s interests in Russian and English,” he said. My classmates seemed unfazed by the opportunity to share the Section 1 experience, but I looked forward to savoring an hour with Mr. Elliot.  “Please give him your full attention,” implored young Mr. Dorrance to the class.  I sensed his fear that we would disgrace him. Mr. Elliot strode to the front and immediately launched a rousing explanation of the author’s complex narrative that passed entirely over the heads of my comparatively disinterested classmates.  After pausing for a moment, the Great Man posed a question.  I knew exactly which section he was referencing and I thought I knew the answer.  I rarely raised a hand in class, however, and I was especially reluctant to draw attention from the man I idolized.  Yet, everyone else was sitting like lumps of clay.  Excruciating silence enveloped the room and I could almost feel Mr. Elliot’s inner-thoughts as he confronted the dullness of students not in Section 1. Finally, in stages, I raised my arm.  Mr. Elliot looked at me. “Yes?” he boomed.  “Do we have some enlightenment from the student in the blue shirt?” “I think…” I began. “Stand up when you respond,” said Mr. Elliot. I rose self-consciously, aware of shuffling around me from surprised classmates. “I think…” I began again. “Don’t ‘think’,” interrupted Mr. Elliot.  “You either know the answer or you do not.” Duly prodded and with a burst of adrenaline, I gathered the entire answer in my mind and delivered a clear and well-formed explanation. I waited a moment for my insight to be lauded.  I was proud of how fully it had unfurled from my lips.  Mr. Elliot, I was certain, was impressed.  I anticipated his broad smile.  Doubtless, he was gathering the right combination of adjectives to describe my answer, perhaps: “cogent, lucid, illuminating.”  Instead, his face contorted in a mask of anger.  Not looking at me, he pivoted to gaze at the entire class, and sputtered: “I do not accept someone reading an answer from Cliff’s Notes in response to my question.  In order to achieve anything in your academic careers, wherever they may take you, you must do your own thinking.” I sat down feeling mortified, humiliated, embarrassed. I noticed Mr. Dorrance shaking his head sadly.  Mr. Elliot proceeded to the next portion of his lecture, while I sat down red-faced, burning with indignation.   I wasn’t a perfect student; however, I liked reading novels and I didn’t use Cliff’s Notes or any other shortcut.   I may have been the only student in Section 2 who read every word of every assignment.  My disillusionment with Mr. Elliot and shame at my inability to defend myself was crushing. The only positive thing about being humiliated in front of a class of teenagers is how little they care.  I went to lunch after class in a daze.  One friend said:  “Wow, he really nailed you.” I started to explain:  “I read every page….” No one was listening.  The discussion had already moved onto the daily dissection of the Allman Brothers, the Eagles, and Van Morrison.  The private injustice done to me was already forgotten, except by me.  I didn’t encounter Mr. Elliot again.  But I took satisfaction for the rest of the school year in taking his words and rules from his walls and making them mine.   Eventually, the focus on quality words and writing Mr. Elliot taught so succinctly (concisely, pithily, sententiously) guided me through the SAT’s, the LSAT’s, law school, the bar exam, my career, parenting and writing. Mr. Elliot turned out not to be my hero, but he was my inspiration.      Exoneration, revenge, vindication.

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Categories Coming of Age, Introversion

SUMMER CAMP

May 26, 2013 //
5

SUMMER CAMP

Adults are often teary-eyed remembering the joys of their childhood summer camps.  They recall campfires and marshmallows, frogging and fishing, crafts and friends.  The singing, the swimming, the painting and ashtray-making all float out of the mists of memory to rekindle pleasure.  They were young and carefree, happy as though those days would last forever.  I was an exception.

To me, Sesame Day Camp represented unmitigated tedium and stress.  There were long waits in gnat-infested grass for mere seconds on the noisy and smoky go-carts.  There was pointless shooting of BB guns and arrows.  There were fruitless swim lessons and long rides to and from camp in counselors’ cars where I was subjected to the moronic music choices of my fellow travelers.  Or, if the radio was not sufficient torture, they sang about beer bottles on the wall.

All I wanted to do in the summer was play ball.  Not tether-ball or the special version of volleyball for the physically delayed called newcomb (one tries to catch the ball and throw it back instead of hitting it).  I wanted to play baseball.  And I wanted to do it with others who were passionate about the sport and capable of performing above a minimum level of skill.  At Sesame, we never played baseball.

One legacy from my time at day camp sets me apart from most of society.   Apparently, despite a level of coordination that was admired in athletics, I missed the developmental milestone that would have rendered me able to tie my shoes prior to camp.  Thus, I was subjected to remedial instruction; I still remember a large, wooden practice shoe.   The method they finally taught me involved double-looping, a technique I have never shaken.   Whenever someone notices how I tie my shoes they shake their head in disbelief.

Another memory from Sesame Day Camp was “bug” juice.  If it was not made with bugs, why did they call it that?  Although I recall heat and humidity worthy of the tropics, I never overcame my literal interpretation to partake in the thrice-daily refreshment ritual.   My fellow campers liked me best when I gave away my drinks.

While one could have the impression from the foregoing that I was a forlorn camper, there were actually several co-sufferers worse off than I.  One was a sickly slip of a boy who everyone called “Powerhouse.”  Teased mercilessly, he sniffed and sniveled and carried himself as though he were invertebrate.  He was even miserable during crafts hour, when I would have expected him to thrive.  He probably ended up as a body-builder.

Another victim of juvenile insensitivity was an overweight boy named Tom Divver.  “Moon River” was a popular song at the time and everyone serenaded him “Tom Divver, wider than a mile, his clothes are out of style….”  No one ever thought of a second line, so they just repeated that over and over and over.

Singing was somehow important at Sesame.  The counselors taught us a ditty that I still remember.  On reflection, nearly five decades later, I think the words were intended to be: “Hi-yike-e-yike-us, nobody’s like us, we are the boys of Sesame!”  But we all sang:  “Hi-yike-e-yike-us, nobody likes us….”  I’m still not sure.

My camping career ended when I was about ten, after three summers of abject complaining finally wore down my mother.  I was allowed to stay at home and throw a ball incessantly against a wall and was infinitely happier.  I was confident the camping experience was put to rest forever.  Twenty years later, however, I married into a family that believed firmly in the value of summer camps.  In spite of my scoffing or, perhaps, because of it, my oldest daughter adored summer camp and upgraded from local day camp to six weeks of stunningly expensive overnight camp, as soon as possible.

“Isn’t it muddy and buggy?” I would ask.

“We have so much fun,” Kelly would reply, not actually answering the question.

“Isn’t the food awful?” I would ask.

“I love my counselors,” she would reply.

It was as though we were speaking different languages or acting in a modernist play by Samuel Beckett.

My second daughter, Sarah, was more reticent and attended local day camps for several summers, with minimal enthusiasm.  She was not fond of mucking horse stalls and eating hot dogs for every other meal.  She was not hankering to stay up all night giggling with bunkmates.  Still, when she was ten, encouraged by her sister and mother, she signed up for a summer of overnight camp where Kelly had graduated to being a senior counselor.

Bearing in mind Sarah’s need for sleep and her love of comfortable circumstances, I fretted:    “Are you sure she’s up for this?”

“She will be fine,” said my wife.

“What if she hates living in a cabin?  What if the girls are not nice?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Kelly will be there,” she said.

I tried to contain my skepticism and I waved good-bye with a fake smile when my wife drove off to deliver the girls to the camp only slightly less distant than Siberia.  The campers were not allowed to call home during the first three weeks and that made me uncomfortable.  I wanted Sarah to have a good time but I still harbored a strong aversion to summer camp.  Imagine my cognitive dissonance several days later when the camp director called my wife to say Sarah was “having a hard time.”

“I’ll go get her,” I volunteered immediately.

“She will be fine,” said my wife.  “It is important for her to work through this.”

“Did you remind the guy to let her have access to Kelly?” I asked.

“Of course, and I’m sure that will calm her down.  She just has to get used to it.”

Several days later, the first letter arrived from Sarah.  In block letters, she wrote:  “This place is awful.  I can’t sleep.  There are mice in the walls, and spider webs.  I want to come home.”

“I will go get her,” I offered again.

“The letter was written five days ago.  By now, I’m sure she is adjusting.  We will see her at parent visitation after the first three weeks.  I have no doubt it will be okay,” said my wife.

The next day, the phone rang again and the caller i.d. indicated it was the camp.  I raced to the phone.  It was Kelly, calling from the director’s office.

“Sarah’s driving me nuts,” said Kelly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She only wants to hang by my side.  And I have forty other girls to take care of.”

“Can’t the director help out?” I asked.

“They’ve tried,” said Kelly, sounding more discouraged than I had ever heard her.

“Is there any hope?” I asked, trying to sound sincerely hopeful.

“Doesn’t look like it,” said Kelly.  “She’s miserable.  I think you will have to take her home at visitation day.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to sound disheartened, while squelching the urge to pump my fist.  “I’ll tell mom.”

A week later, on the long ride to visitation my wife was hopeful Sarah would change her mind.  Her optimism was dashed, however, when we arrived, to find Sarah happily greeting us in the parking lot with her bags packed.

“Don’t you want to show us your bunk?” asked my wife.

“No,” said Sarah.

“Are there any friends you need to say ‘good-bye’ to?” I asked.

“Did it already,” said Sarah.  “Let’s go.”

“We want to spend some time with Kelly,” said my wife.

“Okay,” said Sarah, impatiently.

We found Kelly after a few minutes.   She was “in her element,” happily and effectively handling the needs of her forty other campers and their parents.  We gave her some favorite candy and fresh T-shirts and hurriedly said “good-bye.”  Kelly hugged Sarah tightly, but her relief to see her sister go was clear.

I tried, but probably failed, to tamp down my smugness on the ride home.   We were both relieved to have Sarah happy again.  We agreed it would not make sense to argue our views on summer camp again.  We concluded, finally:  “Different strokes for different folks.”

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Categories Coming of Age, Parenting, Sports
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