Cream Soda

Memorial Day, 2019.

This solemn weekend begins what I have always thought of as the “Long Summer”, which lasts till the early October holiday weekend. (The “Short Summer”, of course, is from the weekend before or containing Independence Day, till Labor Day).

In October the Long Summer will no doubt have flown past, with so many projects as usual undone, so many plans forgotten.  But I still recall the feeling of the endlessness of childhood summers.

I was on City Island on Saturday.  No childhood summer went by without a few bus trips to City Island. Ice cream, or a hot dog; and sometimes a boat ride - accessed by the terrifying, fragile-seeming ramp. The unknowably deep water could be seen through the slats of the ramp.  “Think about Donald Duck” my mother told me once, to keep my courage up as I hesitated at the head of the ramp. On City Island on Saturday I happened to see a small structure painted in thick semigloss gray paint, starting to crack and peel.  And a memory was triggered.

Sunday, looking for the old phone I knew I had (but don’t) on a closet shelf, I found the Wooden Box which I thought I had given back to my brother years ago. He had left it behind when he moved out.  In it were the Broken Stone, The Bronx Meteorite (certainly not a piece of slag, no matter what skeptics might say), a few other things, and the incomplete set of plastic chess pieces.  Another memory.

Today a friend emailed a picture to illustrate a point not relevant here; but in the picture was a 1950s bus.  And the memories all came into focus, distant but sharp.

Until I started high school we lived in a three-story frame building, with a front porch.  The thick gray semigloss paint had a distinctive smell, slightly acrid but not unpleasant, that I remember as well as the feel of the summer heat; or the sound of the loose manhole cover up the block when a car drove over it.

Sitting on the porch, reading.  Donald Duck.  Or the Hardy Boys.  Or textbooks.  There’s an old photo of me sitting on the top step, with a history book open on my lap.  Or sitting with my father, learning to play chess with the plastic pieces, pennies and nickels filling in for the missing ones.  

Or watching Joe Yannatelli conducting his “experiments” from his top-floor porch across the street. The experiments consisted largely of lowering and retrieving toys on lengths of string.  But there was the Fourth of July when he spent the whole day unwrapping firecrackers and piling up the powder.  All that effort; and at 9:00 PM sharp not the promised great explosion, but I bright but utterly silent flash, and it was over.  Sort of like missing Halloween events and then not seeing the Great Pumpkin.

But the memory that came to me so sharply this weekend involved buses.  I had always been fascinated by buses, the way other kids were with planes or trains (or strings and firecrackers).  I had a collection of toy buses that probably numbered 50 or so.  Unlike the old phone, I know they’re still in a box in the closet; I should take them out and count them.  And part of the appeal of trips, to City Island or shopping or to visit my aunt was that they involved riding on buses.

So on summer afternoons I liked to sit on the porch, and watch the variety of buses bringing kids home from various day camps.  School buses old and new, chartered transit buses in unusual colors; and the most amazing, the streamlined one with the rounded, windowless back.  I know now it was a Flxible Clipper; but then it was a Buck Rogers style mystery.

And as I thought about this, another memory.  Sitting on the porch, drinking cream soda. I could sort of remember the flavor.

So today I took a ride down to the old neighborhood, and saw the old house and the old porch, much rebuilt.  And on the way home, I stopped and invested two dollars and thirty-two cents in cream soda.

Two dollars worth has since gone down the drain; and the thirty-two cents’ worth tasted only vaguely like what I remembered. 

But at least now I know.

The End of a Silence

THE END OF A SILENCE

I awoke to the sound of crows the other morning.  Two of them, at least. They cawed for a few minutes, and then fell silent; or flew away.

It’s been a rare sound in Woodlawn – or in the City – since the appearance of the West Nile virus 18 years ago.  I remember that summer, seeing a dead crow lying on the grass, and thinking I had never noticed a dead crow before.  The next day I thought it odd; the dead crow seemed to be in a different place.  And over the next few days it became clear that they were dying in great numbers.  The sky began to seem empty, and quiet, as the birds fell silent, and fell.

I thought of crows in June, at the Tower of London, as I watched the ravens. (See the forthcoming Chapter Six, “I journeyed to London, to the timekept city, where the river flows with foreign flotations”).  There is a legend, although apparently of recent origin, so perhaps legend is the wrong word, that if the ravens leave the Tower, the Tower will fall.  I worried: would The Bronx, or Woodlawn, fall as the crows fell?

In the far-distant past, I had a job administering reading tests for a remedial reading program.  The students were to read a passage and then answer questions about it. The test-giver would read the opening lines aloud, and at the bottom of the page, the students were to turn the page and keep reading silently.  One version began:

If human beings wore wings and feathers, very few would be clever enough to be crows. Whether in the wild state or kept as a pet, the crow is a genius in feathers and an endlessly astonishing bird. A crow kept by a lady in Stewart, Ohio, was so dainty it insisted on washing worms before it would eat them. A Staten Island crow not only ….. [turn the page and continue reading]

Some day I’ll have to look into what the Staten Island crow did.  I assume a Bronx crow could do it better.  And some day soon I’ll have to track down a copy of the reading test so I can cite it properly. I’ve [mis]quoted the passage here from memory.  Henry Ward Beecher wrote “If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows [1]”, but I doubt if he was up on his Stewart Ohio and Staten Island crows.

I like crows.   I hope the silence of the crows is over.

Long silences tend to get longer.  Last January Phyllis assigned me my new year’s resolution: I was to write. It’s been nearly 10 months. I have written.

[1] Quoted in Marzluff, John M., In the Company of Crows and Ravens, Yale University Press, 2005.

The Farmer's Almanac and the Coming of the Fall

I have in front of me The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Calculated on a New and Improved Plan for the Year of Our Lord 2016, Being Leap Year and (Until July 4) 240^th Year of American Independence; Fitted for Boston and the New England States, with Special Corrections and Calculations to Answer for All the United States.

 

Because fall is upon us.  Not for the weather forecasts; not for advice on when to plant; not for the ads for various remedies.   But for the “variety of New, Useful & Entertaining Matter”.  Folklore about shoes. The distances that seeds travel, on the wind, on water, on the backs of animals.  Ten laws that explain everything.   But mostly, because fall is upon us.

I don’t know how it started, but many years ago my mother started giving my brothers and me copies of the Old Farmer’s Almanac every fall.  And for years now, every fall I’ve bought three copies, for my brothers and myself.

The short summer, as I think of it, ended on Labor Day. (It had begun just before the Fourth of July).  The long summer, which started Memorial Day weekend, will last until Columbus Day.  But the calendar summer is over, and the shortening of the days, gradual in July and early August, has come on with a rush, and the trees have a washed-out look.

As D.H. Lawrence wrote,

            Now it is autumn and the falling fruit

            and the long journey towards oblivion.

(“The Ship of Death”, 1933).

But I’m thinking less of oblivion than of the cycle of the year.  The long journey towards the time for thinking of the Winter Provisions, the Fool’s Errand, the time to bring in the tree, and the ascent back into the lengthening days.  And the Almanac, with its calendar pages and corrections and calculations provides a framework that stands alongside the rush of the world, the way rhythm and meter provide frameworks that stand alongside good songs and good poems, without constraining the flow of language.

And I’m thinking now of bees.  Long, long ago, when Julie and I worked together, we would often walk outside on our morning coffee break.  All through that last summer, we’d finish our coffee, and watch with just the slightest apprehension as bees came and investigated our empty mugs for traces of sugar.

There was a cooling of the weather, and no bees. And then a warm day.  A bee came, flying slowly, and seemed to walk slowly and unsteadily on the rim of my mug, and I thought sadly that an end was coming.   And I don’t know at this remove whether at the same time I realized that another cooling off had happened, and another end was coming; or if I’ve superimposed that on the memory, in the light of later sadness.

 

But that’s a long story for another time, the plot for the unfinished novel and unrevised play, and the amazing unlooked-for lesson of never, ever, ever giving up hope.

 

But for now I’m thinking of fall being upon us, and of gratitude for busy bees, and old friends, and small traditions, and my mother’s great kindness.

Heigh, Ho, the Wind and the Rain

I walked into a building this afternoon, out of the rain and wind; and all of a sudden I remembered something from college.

 

A few weeks ago, I saw the Prospect Theater Company’s The Underclassman, a very enjoyable musical by Peter Mills & Cara Reichel, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s time at Princeton, and the events that inspired Tender Is the Night.

I enjoyed it very much; and one of the things that struck me most was the way it captured the sense of college years as being a brief interval of paradise.  There’s a very effective scene at the Jersey Shore, around 1915 or 1916, playing on the thought that beyond the peaceful shore, great nations were at war.  (“Shore” and “war” were the rhyme, but I don’t recall the exact line.)

I don’t think of my college years as a paradise, set off from the rest of my life (although I am aware how privileged I was to go to college).  Maybe because I haven’t always been a full-time sage, and have for most of my life worked in academia, I don’t have the sense of college as a brief, lost interval.

 

But as I came in out of the rain and wind, I instantly thought of a day long ago when Bill and Pete and I came into a college building, out of a similar storm, and did simultaneous double-takes. We came in through a little-used back entrance; and there on the lower landing was Sally, with a blanket, and a picnic lunch spread out.

We shouldn’t have been surprised at anything Sally would do.  But an indoor picnic in the winter …

We were invited to join her; and since we had our lunches with us, there was enough for everyone.  Sally provided pastries which her grandmother, and her grandmother’s friend, had made.   We dutifully composed a thank-you note, beginning “Dear Sally’s Grandmother and Sally’s Grandmother’s Friend”.

 

I don’t remember what class we had been coming from; nor what class we went to next.  But all of a sudden today, I remembered the little bit of paradise, the indoor picnic on a stormy day, long, long ago.

And I’m thinking of what someone wrote, long, long ago:

The warmth of indoors, after winter rain

and silence after walking a windy mile;
soft light on her sleeve, and on her hair
and on her smile.

Thank you, Sally’s Grandmother; and Sally’s Grandmother’s Friend.

And thank you, Sally.

Winter Provisions

                                                                                                                November 2^nd, 2014
“Winter will be coming”.

It certainly wasn’t cold today - mid-forties - but cooler than it’s been in quite a while; and with Descent Into The Darkness Day upon us, dark earlier than we’ve been used to.  It was good to stop into the warm pub, on the way home from not running a marathon. (I did, as the train crossed the bridge into Manhattan this morning, catch a glimpse of industrious, if misguided, runners).  But on the way home, well-guided if not industrious, I wanted warmth and something to eat.

The regular waitress was busy with a special party, but slowed enough as she passed my table to say “winter will be coming”.

We’re not even halfway through the fall, but the idea of winter coming has been planted. Most years, there’s a day in late August when a faded look to the trees, or a sudden breeze, or a passing cloud across the sun, makes me think “fall is coming”.

And today was the fall day when early darkness and unusual chill, and a passing comment made me think of winter.

It used to be a joke between my mother and me that “it’s time to get in the winter provisions”.  There was a theory that I would get a good supply of heavy and bulky items well before the bad weather set in, so that when it was snowy or icy I wouldn’t have to venture out; or at worst would have to carry only light perishables through the deep drifts and howling wind.

It was a fine theory.

Every year, when the first heavy snow hit, I’d look at my empty pantry, and call my mother to say “I’m going to hitch Oliver to the sleigh and set out to the village.  I’ll get your provisions too.” (Oliver Twist was my cat. He was an orphan, and when I fed him he asked for more).

More often than not, my mother would have had not only the forethought, but the ambition, to have gotten extra groceries; and her apartment being closer than the village, I’d wind up getting a meal there.

In the midst of the Y2K hysteria, we were advised to prepare “as if for a major storm”.  I pictured myself on the first dawn of the new millennium struggling through deep snow, prepared as usual.

There was another joke between us. After visiting my brother and sister-in-law, either on or soon after Thanksgiving, in the northern wilderness of Fort Montgomery, we would say that the mountain pass would soon be closed by blizzards, and we wouldn’t see them till the new year. I don’t recall ever missing a visit there, either on or soon after Christmas.

 

Coming out of the warm pub, I thought of holidays past; and winters past, and winters to come. And I thought of stopping in the supermarket as I passed, to begin laying in supplies.

 

But I have plenty of time.

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Sandy Andy

I had a Sandy Andy.

I hadn't thought of it in a long time.  I was passing the post office on Katonah Avenue the other evening, and I suddenly remembered my Sandy Andy.

It might not in fact have actually been called “Sandy Andy”, but that’s what my mother referred to it as.  

For those who never had the great pleasure of owning and operating one, I’ll try to describe it.   The one pictured here (I’m not sure how long the link will remain active)

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/VINTAGE-SAND-BOX-TOY-TIN-SAND-LOADER-/261264789183?pt=Vintage_Antique_Toys_US&hash=item3cd4984ebf

is similar, but in my memory at least mine was taller. There was a lower hopper which you would fill with sand.  Turning a crank would cause a series of buckets on a chain to dip into the lower hopper, fill with sand, and convey it to the upper hopper.  From the upper hopper the sand fell through a chute into a waiting car on rails.

The rails were on a hinged beam; when the car was full, the weight caused the beam to slant down; the car would run down the beam, and at the bottom it would tilt and dump the sand back into the lower hopper. A clever arrangement prevented sand from falling out of the upper hopper -- the buckets kept filling it as long as the crank was turned -- until the now lighter car rode the rails on the beam back to under the chute.

And except for the energy provided by turning the crank, it was all done by gravity and clever engineering.

As I child I found the action fascinating.  There was the growing “suspense” as the car filled; which bucket load would be the one to make it heavy enough to start the tilt/run downhill/dump/return sequence?

As an adult I find the construction fascinating.  And, I suspect, if I could only have it again, I’d find the action fascinating too.  The growing suspense ....

I mentioned Sandy Andies to Julie.  She had never had the great pleasure of owning and operating one; she didn’t know what they were.  I described the wonderful device and its amazing operation.  

There was more than a double take; she actually bounced in the chair.  “You poor child!  What were your parents trying to do to you?  Introduce you to a life of meaningless, repetitive labor? Show you that the universe has no meaning?”

I was dismayed.  Not only did she not love my Sandy Andy, she misunderstood, disdained, and abused its memory.

I probably should have known better, but some time later I tried to tell her about another wonderful toy I had. It took some searching, but I’ve been able to find it online. The Magnetic Sneaky Snake Game.

http://www.timepassagesnostalgia.com/&pm=0&searchkeywords=Magnet+Reptile&sin=7771

In case that link no longer works, picture a plastic base, about eight inches or a foot long.  In the center, a bowl-like depression, representing ... how can I do it justice? ... a snake nest.  On either end, a coiled spring, standing upright from the base but curving towards the center.  The free end of each spring had a plastic shake head, with a magnet in it.  The two “snakes” had magnets of opposite polarity, so they’d repel each other and move in what I assume was at least a vaguely snakelike way.

In the depressed “nest” were two or three steel “eggs” about half an inch in length. The final piece of equipment was a wand, with a magnet on the end.  The object of the game was to use the magnetic wand to pick up the eggs, one by one, and get then out of the nest, without being struck by the shakes, which of course would be attracted by the magnet.

I had a lot of fun with it.

Julie didn't so much jump in her chair as catapult out of it. She was lucky she didn't land on the floor. I don’t know, maybe she had had dolls or toy cookware or boring stuff like that.

Anyway, I was passing the post office recently.  A mail carrier got out of a mail truck, carrying one of those plastic bins full of envelopes. She went over to the mailbox in front of the post office, and started putting the mail into the box.

I had an image of the buckets on a chain, endlessly recycling the same sand, and the two hoppers being endlessly refilled.  A metaphor of meaninglessness?  The universe cycling forever from big bang to big crunch?  Julie bouncing endlessly in the chair, reacting in horror to meaninglessness?

Whatever. I saw that, and I wanted my Sandy Andy .

 

 

The Ghost Samaritan

Chapter Six

The Ghost Samaritan; or, A Suburban Legend

All that was needed was a scarecrow, and maybe a pumpkin patch.

Dead leaves. Bare trees.  An empty farm field. A chilly wind stirring the leaves.

And an empty road, with my car on the shoulder. The front right tire flat and shredded; the wheel nuts on so tight that no amount of effort or leverage would budge them.

And all the while, at the back and front and sides of my mind, fear and worry.  One of my best friends was undergoing surgery that morning.

My boss, who was with me, had a thought.  “It’s just a year since our colleague Larry was killed in a crash. I wonder if this is where it happened?”  I picked up the jack handle ....


It all came of working for madman.

My boss’s boss’s had a death in the family, and the funeral was that morning in eastern Pennsylvania. I would have been more than willing to go, and drive anyone else who wanted to go; but for my friend’s surgery.  Not that there was anything I could do for her; but worry had eroded my ambition and concentration.  In the end, I decided someone from work should be there, and I told my boss I would go.

He said he’d meet me in The Bronx at 7:30 (he lived on the Upper East Side) so that we could get to the Bridge easily.  At 6:00 that morning my phone rang.  He thought it would be better if I picked him up on East 86th Street at 7:30.  I won’t say what I thought.

I got to his building about 7:32.  He wasn’t outside, as he had said he would be.  In those pre-cell phone days, there was little I could do. After a few minutes, he emerged.  Since I had been “late” he had gone back upstairs to call, to see if I were really coming.

There is no easy way to get to the GWB from East 86th Street; but there was no easy way to do anything with him, so why should this be different.  He insisted we take the Lincoln Tunnel.  Not for the last time, I should have ignored him. But: he was my boss; my thoughts and feelings were elsewhere; and I wanted this to go as effortlessly as possible.

 

He waved his directions to the funeral, and his map of New Jersey, in my face.  I said, not for the last time, “I know what we have to do from here till we have to exit Route 22; then I’ll ask you to remind me of the directions.”



Coming up the helix on the New Jersey side, he unfolded his map, holding it up in front of him and spreading it wide, blocking most of the windshield.  I said “I know what we have to do from here till we have to exit Route 22; then I’ll ask you to remind me of the directions.”

Heading south on the Turnpike, to take 78 west.  He said “exit 14.”  I knew it was 14A; I had gone that way to 78 a dozen times.  He was insistent. He rummaged in his pockets and came out with his hand-scrawled directions to the funeral.  Again, and even more against such judgment as I retained, I gave way, thinking that if he saw that he was obviously wrong, and I obviously knew how to go, the rest of the trip might he less contentious.

I think it was turning around in the rubble-strewn lot in Bayonne (or wherever it was) that inflicted the damage to the tire, which was not to show up till later. I didn’t hear anything at the time, because of his repeated “I was sure it was exit 14.”

At long last reaching Route 22, I got out the sketch map I had prepared.  In those pre-GPS days, I would sketch a map, with the destination at the top, showing the turns, route numbers and exits from bottom to top; when laid in my lap, it aligned with the direction I was going.

He snatched it out of my lap, giving me quite a start.  He unfolded his giant map across the windshield.  “Your map is upside down” he told me.  I tried once to explain. A mistake.

“Are you telling me ...” he began, “are you telling me that you read from bottom to ....”  This went on for quite a while.

Thump.  Thump thump. Thump thump thump thump .... the car was pulling hard to right; I fought to get it as smoothly as possible onto the shoulder.  I got out and looked at the ruined tire; while he sat crumpled like a marionette with broken strings, with his crumpled map in his lap.  He finally got out, and looked at the tire.  “It doesn’t look too bad.”  I didn’t answer him, but just got out the jack.  The wheel nuts were very tight.  They were very, very tight.  Neither I nor the boss, nor our combined efforts, nor even putting my full weight on the handle of the wrench would budge them.

There was an exit a few hundred yards ahead.  The tire was already ruined; it would make sense to drive on it to the exit. There was always a gas station at exits.

There was a farm field, and an empty road.

We tried again, and failed again.  The boss was inspired to think about the tragic death of a friend the year before. “It’s just a year since our colleague Larry was killed in a crash. I wonder if this is where it happened?”  I picked up the jack handle.  I thought, with all that tall grass and dead vegetation, how long before the boss’s body would be discovered?  I slammed the handle against the nuts, and tried again.

 

They wouldn’t budge.

I don’t remember how long we stood there, waiting for a car to come by.  I was considering backing up the exit ramp onto the highway, when a pickup truck came along.  The friendly, sympathetic driver tried all his strength, and all his weight, without success.  He said “I’ll go and get some tools and come back.”

The boss said to me “why don’t you go with him?  I’ll wait here.”  I was going to try to send the boss, while I waited at the car; but it was impossible to convince him; and who knows what would happen if he were to set off alone in the truck with the Good Samaritan.  I might never see either of them again; and I needed the Samaritan.

Our benefactor and I set out in his truck, down a series of twisting, progressively narrower, more rutted, and more desolate roads.  As we went, he told me his name, and that he restored antique furniture.  He spoke of his interest in paleontology, and in DNA research.  He mentioned that he was concerned about our growing dependence on computers.  And finally, he told me he suffered from severe attention deficit disorder.

At length we pulled up to a well-kept but very secluded house.  I thought idly “I think I’ve seen this movie.”  He went into the basement, and was gone a while. I worried about his ADD; would he remember that he was going to help us, or even who I was, or why I was in his house?

He emerged from the basement carrying a long-handled axe.  I thought “I’ve definitely seen this movie.”  But he said “this will do it!” and we set off.  And indeed it did do it: a few hard blows with the blunt end of the axe head on the inside of the wheel, and the nuts came loose.  We changed the tire, and our benefactor departed, refusing to take anything for his trouble.  But he had given me his furniture business card, and already I knew what I could do to reward him.

The boss and I set out, knowing it was too late for the service, but hoping to get to the cemetery in time.  He consulted his version of the directions.  “West on Swamp Road.” Swamp Road got progressively more rutted and winding, and eventually vanished into a muddy field.  He studied his directions again.  “‘East on Swamp Road’ I should have said.”

Since it was now obviously too late to catch the funeral party at the cemetery, we heading north and east again, with my normally morose boss talking cheerfully about how maybe this was all meant to be.  Approaching the city, he decided that he would not in fact go up to The Bronx to the office, so that I could battle the Manhattan traffic to get him to the Upper East Side, before heading to what was left of the work day myself.


Back at work I accomplished nothing. For probably only the second time in my life, I paced the floor, worrying about my friend and her surgery.  As it developed, she had come through it well; but no one thought to call me with the news.


Our Good Samaritan had refused to take anything for his time and effort and concern.  But his conversation: paleontology, DNA, computer risks, had given me an idea.  I bought a copy of the recently-published Jurassic Park and mailed it to the address on his business card, along with a note expressing my thanks. A few days later, it was back in my mailbox.  “No such address.”  A call to the number on the card resulted in a “no such number” message.


And that’s my true story of worry, delay, misdirection, and stranding; and of rescue by the Ghost Samaritan.