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Notice: Uninitialized string offset: 0 in /usr/home/web/users/a0026794/html/wp-includes/blocks/blocks-json.php on line 1 Reminiscence Archives • Page 3 of 4 • words and images↓
A couple of weekends ago, I spent as much time worrying about the fires in Greece as I did enjoying the weather and the two days of reprieve. Everything about the verbal and photographic images haunted me: the encircling flames, the smoke plumes over the Mediterranean, the burnt cars, the woman and her four children who need not have died but couldn’t have known what would happen, those who died trapped, and the mute agony of the wild animals and livestock unable to escape. Every image seemed more disturbing than the last as they built upon one another and as one thought led to another, but still I could not stop watching.
Perhaps I was reminded of an irrational fear that dogged me every summer of my childhood — that the woods behind my home would catch on fire and that the fire would rage out of control, consuming the trees, my home, and everything I had ever known. Every now and then I would become fixated on this idea. It terrified me. I would tell myself that fires in the woods were rare, and that the few there had been had been contained and put out quickly. I saw the smoke of one on a fine, sunny day; that one perhaps triggered my fear.
As I grew up and had more to focus on — schoolwork, friends, etc. — this particular fear receded into the background. It was still there, but it was dormant. The only time I was troubled by fire in the woods was in my dreams, but not very often.
How naive I was. I couldn’t picture how a fire in the woods could spread very far and thought that that was the rational viewpoint, so my fear seemed irrational and childish. I am sure I must have seen footage of forest fires, and I understood Smokey Bear’s message and took it to heart. Somehow, never having been affected, I didn’t truly understand the speed, the scope, and the consequences of forest fires. Perhaps it was my animal brain that did and that was wise to be afraid and to intrude on my more rational one.
Now I live more than 500 miles from those woods, which I loved and feared. I still do, and I still worry in my deepest consciousness about the potential for fire there — a fire which could no longer reach me.
My memories of 10 years ago are vivid and painful, and they remind me that some things do indeed work out well.
Along with a couple of other consultants, I was in a small Midwestern town dominated by a tech company. The trip there had been eventful, and the local hotel did not offer the comforts of the downtown Minneapolis Embassy Suites where I stayed when visiting that office. The phone in my first room did not work, and no one seemed inclined to fix it. The “continental breakfast” proved to be a box of corn flakes with milk and orange juice. There was nowhere to walk, and no time for it anyway. From personal and professional causes, I had slid into a severe clinical depression (diagnosed) that sapped all my energy as I struggled to hide it, mostly successfully, from coworkers and clients.
During this client visit, we were to put the finishing touches on an employee communications program surrounding a rollout. My Minneapolis coworkers, of whom I was fond, teased me by saying that they had insisted that I come, too, to experience their pain. Apparently nervous and controlling, the client seemed to want to be sure that we were working devotedly on their project. To that end, their plan was to put us into a small room with our computers, printer, and supplies, close the door, and leave us to it. Bathroom or water fountain breaks were to require an escort. At 36, there’s nothing like having to ask permission to use the facilities, being led to them, and rushing because your escort is waiting.
We arrived late at night, when I would have been tired and most vulnerable to feelings of sadness. I started to feel generally ill, and then I found it — a hard, sore lump in a place where hard, sore lumps have no business. Quietly, I became panicked, almost hysterical. Because the phone didn’t work, I couldn’t call anyone for reassurance and comfort; it wasn’t something I could discuss publicly on the lobby pay phone at 11 p.m. So I cried to myself, probably hard and for a very long time. I slept little, if at all.
The next day, I discovered what life was to be like for the duration of this visit — with no privacy, bent over a computer for hours, with creativity and wit and solutions expected to flow like something that can be produced on demand. On top of feeling depressed and ill, now I was exhausted, too. I thought I was hiding it all well, but my coworkers and people from the client told me that I looked terrible and deathly pale. And when I looked in the mirror, I had to agree. Yet I could not excuse myself from spending the next eight hours or so hunched over the computer, being “creative.” That experience over two days taught me a little of my grit and resources.
The lump turned out to be an impacted, infected gland that would bother me for more than a year, even with treatment, before finally resolving itself. A year later I would leave that job with few regrets, with those mainly for people who had already left. I would not have survived had I stayed (the practice was sold), and I found myself in a position and a culture then more suited to my personality and temperament. With that, the clouds passed on, for the most part. I still have moments, but they are mostly just that. I live in a better place, I work in a better place, I’ve met people I might never have known otherwise, and the work that I’ve done — big projects and small — has made a difference for a lot of people.
I hope never to be so alone and so frightened again. If I am, I know that I have it in me to do what it takes to endure, and that what looks like a storm may lead to a rainbow.
It was 30 years ago today that the blizzard of 1977 struck Western New York. And it most likely was the worst birthday of my mother’s life.
After 30 years, I don’t remember the details. It was a Friday, and my dad went to work. Although I can’t be sure, I think that the schools were closed. My impression is that I spent the day at home with my mother and with a sense of nothing happening and a sense of something about to happen.
It was my mother’s 58th birthday. She would have six more.
My mother suffered from depression and anxiety. For me, who loves snow, the winter of 1976/77 was beautiful and magical, with its accumulation of sparkling snow cover. For my mother, though, it must have seemed dreary, oppressive, and lonely, like the harsh New England winter setting of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, and January 28 must have been the dreariest and loneliest day of all.
I’ve read that it didn’t snow much on January 28, but high winds caused the existing snow to drift. Later, I would see photos of houses in Buffalo buried to the roof line. High winds always frightened me. Whenever I felt the trailer shake and shudder, I had visions of it being blown off its cement blocks, falling like a toy, and life as I knew it would end forever when that happened.
Perhaps that is how my mother felt when my dad didn’t come home from work.
Being young and optimistic, I wasn’t worried. I knew, with the occasional confidence of youth, that my dad was all right. But I knew,from my mother’s silence and her attention to the storm and the transistor radio, that she couldn’t shake her growing gloom, her feeling that all was not well and would not be again.
Then my dad still didn’t come home.
I tried to act as though everything were normal. I insisted on making the traditional birthday cake. A birthday would not be a birthday without the cake or a photo of the birthday person with it.
My dad didn’t appear, and he didn’t call, and I suspect supper was somewhat late that evening, put off until after its usual 5 p.m. serving in the hope that he might show up or send word somehow. But he didn’t.
It was probably between 8 and 9 p.m. when I finally convinced the birthday girl to cut the cake and to try to celebrate. I still have the photo I took, in which she is wearing a red pantsuit and is wearing a look of worry under a forced half-smile. A 15-year-old can’t realize that a 58th birthday may be neither special nor happy under even good circumstances, but especially not when it is accompanied by visions of car accidents and widowhood. Logic — the fact that most roads had been closed and that no one could get through on them to cause or participate in an accident — does little to hinder such thoughts.
My mother never slept well, often getting up restlessly between 2 and 4 a.m., and I suspect that this was one of the longest, most sleepless nights of her life.
At some point in the morning, my dad appeared suddenly at the front door. “Where have you been?” At the plant, of course. He had done what most of the other workers had — worked a double shift, eating out of vending machines. “Why didn’t you call?” There were dozens of employees lined up to use the limited number of pay phones to contact anxious spouses, children, parents, and other family members. He genuinely did not seem to understand why she had been so worried.
He had worked the double shift, driven the three or so miles home when allowed, parked at the entrance to the trailer park because the roads were impassable, and slept in his van, probably under the scratchy old army blanket that went everywhere the van did, because the roads through the park were impassable. He walked home after it was light and there was a break in the weather.
I don’t know if my mother ever forgave my father for the blizzard of ’77 or the worst birthday of her life, and I don’t know if he with his pragmatic nature ever understood all the anxiety that she could put herself through. Perhaps they are finally sharing some of that birthday cake today, and perhaps she is finally smiling.
Wayne C. Booth February 22, 1921 – October 10, 2005
I was privileged to have had both Wayne Booth and Ned Rosenheim as professors. Unfortunately, I was too young but mostly too ignorant, too out of my element, too overwhelmed, too dysfunctional, and too depressed to appreciate and make the most of a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I remember both of them fondly and regret that I did not learn as much as I could from them because I wasn’t ready.
Mr. Booth taught my first-year humanities course. I struggled less with than with courses in other disciplines, like social science, but I still struggled — through Plato and Aristotle, among others. Even then, I read slowly and tired easily, and had difficulty following ideas that were presented in any kind of complex or wordy fashion. I had problems with philosophers in general because so many seemed to present their personal perceptions as fact, which made no sense to me, and to meander on with no useful point in sight. (Although I don’t like structure and objectives, I require them from my reading, oddly enough.)
Something I’d read in Plato made me ask a theoretical question about a man on an island and civilization. It was perhaps the first and only time I had a basic insight into the purpose of philosophy. Mr. Booth liked the question and posed it to the class. He explored it and found the flaws in it. He made a great effort to get me to talk more, to pull me out of myself. He seemed to think that I had something to say, and he even said once or twice that I had potential — I assume he meant potential to be a thinker. Once, someone sitting next to me in the class was bothering me. Mr. Booth caught us whispering and genuinely believed I had something significant to share with the class. I insisted I didn’t, and we moved on. It was an embarrassing and humiliating moment, not because I’d been caught being disruptive, but because I felt I’d revealed my true, foolish, unworthy self to someone who had shown confidence in me and who had encouraged me to be something I knew I couldn’t be. After that, I felt I’d lost his respect. That could have just been the remnants of adolescent angst rather than the reality; I’ll never know. I may have lost some of my own.
Mr. Booth had a gentle sense of humor. In our class, there was a student from Jamaica named Geoffrey (the “correct spelling,” he insisted). One morning a nasty snowstorm hit Chicago. Geoffrey did not appear for class. The rest of us were excited about the storm; it was one of those where big, puffy, distinct flakes fell thickly. Mr. Booth said, “Does anyone want to bet that Geoffrey can’t make it in through the snow?” We laughed. Geoffrey did arrive for the last five to ten minutes of the class, covered with snow and saying, “Wow! Brrr!”
We liked Mr. Booth and our class so much that, at the end of it, we held a party. I think he and his wife played a duet for us. I do remember a lovely evening and a sense of sadness that something wonderful was over, like the feeling actors have at the end-of-run cast party. An experience had ended that could never be repeated — an experience I’d had, yet not had.
Edward “Ned” Rosenheim May 15, 1918 – November 29, 2005
The class I had with Ned Rosenheim was perhaps two to three times larger — at first. The subject was “Fiction of the 1930s,” which Mr. Rosenheim claimed he was uniquely qualified to teach at the University of Chicago because “I read all these books when they were bestsellers.” He made a lot of humorous, self-deprecating comments about his age. He was a few months older than my mother.
“Fiction of the 1930s” was a popular class, one that students slept out for, but I didn’t have to because English language and literature majors had priority. The classroom was crowded the first day, almost like a chemistry lecture class. I remember Mr. Rosenheim making jokes about the size of the class and wish I could recall what they were; I think he said something about people being in the wrong place because it was not a popular class. He tried to convince us it would be a difficult one, noting chemistry and physics majors began by thinking English and other humanities classes were quite easy compared to, say, organic chemistry. Indeed, I found that was the consensus of the class.
Within a few weeks, the class had shrunk dramatically. I couldn’t tell you why. I don’t know how many papers we had to write, but I suspect part of it was the reading. Reading eight to ten substantial novels like The Late George Apley, The Grapes of Wrath, and Studs Lonigan is not an easy feat, on top of two or three other courses. The holdouts were primarily the humanities majors, which was probably more comfortable for Mr. Rosenheim — that is, teaching people who shared a love of reading rather than those trying to get by easily.
Because of his jovial manner and cherubic appearance, most people seemed to think Mr. Rosenheim would be an easy grader. I picked up either a paper or an exam and had received a high mark and assumed everyone else had as well. I discovered later that there were only a couple of As and Bs, many Cs, and a healthy amount of Ds. To me, that’s how it should be, because if C means average, it should be the most common grade, while there should be very few As (outstanding) in proportion. I found this impressive because it demonstrated to me that one could be a witty, “nice” person, yet still be demanding and tough where it matters. (It didn’t hurt that I had received one of the high marks!)
Dallas was a very popular television show at the time, and I had a silly T-shirt — actually unrelated to the show or the show’s merchandise — that said “Ewing Oil” with a tagline. Mr. Rosenheim noticed it one day and made a comment about it (another that I can’t recall!), then had me stand up and model the shirt for the class, even having me turn around. I wondered if he did it because I was always trying to hide, and that was his way of making me visible. It was another embarrassing moment, although the embarrassment quickly faded into a happy memory.
At the end of the quarter, I was going to be late writing the final paper — so late that Mr. Rosenheim would not be at or returning to his campus office. He gave me his address, a lovely apartment at 58th and Blackstone, and told me I could bring it to him there. It was kind of him to offer me that chance, and he was gracious when he met me (I was nervous).
It seems terrible that I can’t describe these professors’ classes or the discussions in detail, as though I did not get much out of them. At the time, I was too overwhelmed by the entire experience of campus life to take it all in, and I had not adapted very well (and never did). But each did have an impact. Both gave me confidence that I had ability and even potential, at least in the humanities. Mr. Booth made me believe in questioning everything — including Plato and Aristotle, including everything we assume is true because it has always been accepted as such. Mr. Rosenheim helped me appreciate the subtleties of literature, to explore the text and the subtext.
As 18- to 20-year-olds, we no doubt thought Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim ancient, at least 70 if not 80. I did, and in spring of 2001 it occurred to me that they must have already passed on, although I had not heard anything specific. Then I must have seen something about Mr. Booth, because realized that he was not only alive, but still active at the university. I visited the University of Chicago website on the off chance he might have an e-mail address. He did! I wrote to him knowing that there was little likelihood he would write back. He did!
He said he remembered me, although the memory was admittedly “dim,” then suggested that I get together with him and his wife for lunch while they were still in town. He also said that, for some reason, my note had sparked him to pick up The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I was stunned by the offer and the comment, which came at a time when I felt overwhelmed by the sudden decline my father’s health was suffering. (He died July 28, 2001.) For whatever reason, Mr. Booth and I never did have lunch or the conversation about what was on our minds, as he put it. Another missed opportunity, another regret.
When I read of Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim’s deaths, I was surprised to learn they were both younger than my father. During all those years I had carried the impression picked up as a youth that they were very old men, and in reality they were only in late middle age and at the pinnacle of their academic careers and intellectual lives. What an odd thing perception is in the young, and how long it lasts.
Thank you, Mr. Booth and Mr. Rosenheim. You influenced so many of us in ways that others, such as politicians and other so-called leaders, can only envy. Thank you for making us think for ourselves, like the natural philosophers we are. And thank you for proving that the discussion and debate of even the most sensitive ideas do not need to be vicious or mean-spirited, and that they can be and are exciting and enlightening.
We’ll miss you and your wisdom. And our lost opportunities.
I went to a dentist about 15 years ago, who told me I had some new cavities and that he was going to use Novocain. I told him that I’d never had Novocain, and he said I had to be lying, given the number and type of cavities I had.
But it was true. In the 1960s, it was not unheard of for dentists to drill into children and teenagers without using anesthetic. It could be the reason so many people supposedly stopped going to dentists or were afraid to go in the first place, after hearing horror stories of primitive treatment and assuming not much had changed in the last 30 years.
My first experience with Novocain was not positive. My face swelled for two or three days, so I thought I had had an allergic reaction. Later, an endodontist told me that the dentist had possibly broken a blood vessel, but that an allergy to Novocain would be rare. I don’t know, but my current dentist also uses Novocain. A few years ago she told me that it wasn’t an option for at least one tooth because of how deep the cavity was. Because I could feel pain even under the Novocain, I concede that she was right.
Why the interest in dentistry? A month or so ago, the orthodontist’s assistant removed my upper braces and made a mold of my teeth, then gave me a retainer a week later with the instructions to rinse them in Efferdent or a similar cleaner. I didn’t think much of it until I was in Walgreens looking for Efferdent, and couldn’t find it at first. Eventually I located it on the bottom shelf, underneath all the whitening and brightening toothpastes. Bottom-shelf products are the ones that move slowly. Of course — how many people have dentures compared to how many have a need for whiter and brighter real teeth?1
This prompted me to think how different today’s generation is from mine and that of my parents. Both of my parents had full upper and lower plates. If I remember right, my dad’s teeth were removed courtesy of the U.S. Army Air Force. I’ve seen one photo of him smiling with his natural teeth, and it wasn’t pretty. They grew up in an era when the water wasn’t fluoridated, and country kids brushed, if at all, with baking soda. His youngest sister, however, did manage to keep most of her teeth.
My brother and I have many, many cavities, plus he had a root canal or two in his twenties. His are probably due to genetics because he took care of his teeth, while mine are due to poor dental hygiene. I didn’t want to brush when I was a child, and my parents didn’t push it. I can’t remember when I did start brushing regularly, but it was late in adolescence and then only once a day. No flossing. Surprisingly, I did not have bad breath, but I did get cavities. Now, of course, with braces, I brush and rinse twice a day and floss at night; gums deteriorate pretty quickly under braces if you aren’t fastidious, I quickly found out.
Most of the younger people I know are surprised to learn I have fillings because they have few if any. At first, this surprised me. I always believed that cavities were inevitable, that hygiene only staved them off or minimized them. Apparently, however, a combination of good genes and dental hygiene can actually mean a cavity-free existence. What’s it like never to have know the grating sound and feel of a drill chipping away at your teeth?
At this rate of progress, soon there will be a day when Efferdent will be needed only for retainers, mouth guards, and similar appliances. Dentures no more.
I’m not through with silly advertising, but I’m going to take a very brief detour into slightly different territory — a t-shirt I observed downtown the other day on the back of a young man. The text was:
Where the only thing to go down on you is your GPA.
T-shirt
“Hmmm,” I thought. “That sounds like something that someone at the University of Chicago [A.B., 1983] might say.” I discreetly stepped up my pace and took a look at the front — where the shirt sported the University of Chicago name and logo.
This wasn’t a lucky guess on my part. The University of Chicago ranks high academically, but near or at the bottom socially. If you want to learn how to think and analyze, go to the University of Chicago. If you want to have fun (however you define fun), go somewhere — anywhere — else. And if you want to not have fun with people who look like they’ve stayed up all night in an earnest attempt to find something original to say about Thucydides and who enjoyed the exercise, you’ll definitely want to attend the University of Chicago.
If you want to have fun with someone who looks like they don’t know and don’t care who Thucydides was and who is gearing up to get through their public speaking class on the road toward that coveted mass communications degree, then the University of Chicago is a good place to avoid.
Of course, if students at the University of Chicago wanted to surround themselves with fun peers, they might think twice about wearing discouraging t-shirts that advertise the university’s renowned lack of appeal to the party animal extrovert. But then it’s just possible that surrounding themselves with people who read Thucydides is what passes for excitement.
At this point, I’ll admit that I too wore such a t-shirt. It had been designed for the all-male house next door. It showed the Brooks Brothers sheep on the front; on the back, under my long hair (which people would boldly move aside), were the words:
Upper Rickert: Where the men are men and the sheep are nervous.
A former t-shirt
I wore the shirt for years — even after someone helpfully explained to me what it meant.
Twenty-five years ago, someone would have had to explain to me, “Where the only thing to go down on you is your GPA,” too.
No wonder we didn’t have fun. We didn’t know how to.
Perhaps the University of Chicago needs to add sex education to the Common Core.
While I was lightly napping today (February 13, 2005), I had recurring thoughts of a field overgrown with weeds next to pavement. Then I thought of a store with an outside display, possibly of baked goods, and an unmanned cash register. In my mind, I started walking up a hill that I knew well. As in all my dreams, it all seemed surreal.
I’ve had this dream thought before, and it surely relates to the South Shore Plaza across from the trailer park where I grew up. Rte. 20 was on one side; Rogers Rd. was on another. A third side bordered an overgrown area next to a house’s backyard, while the back parking lot/delivery area faced an overgrown area that buffered the plaza from modern apartment buildings. (Even Hamburg was becoming 70s urbanised.)
It seems odd that I would have some deep emotional attachment to a piece of suburban blight like South Shore Plaza. I’m not sure when it opened — probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Most likely, my parents went to the grand opening. The plaza was anchored by three major stores: a grocery store (Loblaw, A&P, perhaps some others later I don’t remember); Hens & Kelly, a somewhat upscale department store that gave out Green Stamps and where I got my ears pierced; and a discount chain store (Neisner, Big N, K-mart, perhaps others).
Among the other stores were a Your Host restaurant (diner-style chain, with counters and tables), Carvel Ice Cream (the chain is still around!), Edie Adams’ Cut & Curl salon, a drugstore whose name I’ve forgotten, and other specialised stores.
The plaza was catty cornered and downhill from the trailer park, so we did a lot of shopping there. The first grocery store had a tiled lobby area with gumball and toy machines; I remember seeing the elderly Mrs. Clarke and her chihuahua Tiny there one evening as she waited for her family. Apparently, Tiny was a one-woman dog and didn’t even like Mrs. Clarke’s daughter and son-in-law, with whom she lived. But Tiny was always happy to see me; whenever we visited them, on Abbott Rd. off Rte. 20, he would spend the evening blissfully cuddling with me. When Tiny died, Mrs. Clarke told everyone that I was the only other person he had ever loved.
The plaza was across the Bethlehem Management Club on Rogers Rd. (now privately owned as Brierwood Country Club). On July 4, we, along with many others, would arrive at the plaza parking lot to watch the club’s fireworks from our car (later, our van). It was one of those traditions that children look forward to and teenagers disdain. (I do think I always looked forward to it to a lessening degree as a change in routine.)
Within 10 years or perhaps less, the plaza was already in decline. The local economy, built on Bethlehem Steel and Ford Motor Company, was poor, and the energy/fuel crisis of the early 1970s was probably a factor. Even Hens & Kelly, which I think was sold, eventually closed, with the once-upscale space being taken over by a discount warehouse-type store.The anchor stores kept closing and then re-opening months or even years later under another brand, only to close again. Then the smaller specialty stores became things like a dollar store and a secondhand bookstore. Everyone in Hamburg who still had jobs and money was flocking to the new, more respectable malls in other suburbs like Cheektowaga. The death blow came when a mall with all the popular chain stores opened in Hamburg itself.
I have an aerial photo from 1995 showing the plaza. The last time I saw it was in 1999, after a class reunion. It had fallen into disrepair, and there was not much left aside from a couple of random stores and a bar at the upper end. It would be a wonderful thing now just to tear it down, to rip out the massive parking lot, and to let it revert to a field and then woods, or, more likely, to make it into a housing development.
What I remember best about the plaza was a courtyard between Hens & Kelly and the next store up. It was simply raised ground with plantings, where you could sit on the cement and relax. I’m not sure why I liked it so much; it was usually shady (there may have been an overhang), quiet, and used mainly by people cutting through to the back parking lot. My childish mind found it different, even mysterious — an odd oasis connecting the very different front and back of the plaza and that still evokes a pleasant, even interesting feelings.
In my half-awake state, I think I realised why my early memories of the plaza mean so much to me. It was my town square, the center of my community, a destination, a change in routine, where we went to see and buy things and where we would run into Mrs. Clarke and Tiny or one of my dad’s Ford coworkers, where my mother would go faithfully to Edie Adams’ Cut & Curl for her monthly perm — all within walking distance, if we were so inclined, or a hop in the van away. That the plaza was in its prime and served as this center for only a few years and that it is now a blight and has been one for 35 years doesn’t matter; the memories, the good feelings, and the sense of timelessness I felt in that courtyard do.
This is from 14 August 1999. My dad was still alive. (He died 28 July 2001.)
I grew up in a trailer park. I didn’t mind because I had some advantages people with houses and yards didn’t have, mainly because of where our particular trailer was situated, at the corner of a woods and a field.
Amsdell Road woods woods | field woods | trailer 56 woods | trailer woods | trailer woods | trailer woods | trailer woods | trailer woods | trailer clearing with circular track behind tree line |______________ | grassy area and ditch Route 20
When my parents moved to the trailer park, they had a smaller trailer in a different location, but my arrival necessitated a larger trailer in a different spot (already, I was powerful). 🙂 They ended up on the end of the row, with woods behind them and field next to them.
The woods hadn’t always been woods; I have a postcard from the 1950s that shows the park from an aerial perspective, and it was just a few scattered shrubs that must have sprouted — pretty bare and desolate looking, especially in black and white. The man who owned the land was always trying to sell it with no luck; the woods probably grew up on their own since activity wasn’t stopping them. By the last time I’d seen them, in 1987, they were close to maturing into a real forest (a tiny one). The trees were finally getting tall and the underbrush that is typical of young, developing woods was starting to clear out a little. A lesson in ecology — the stages of a forest.
My father planted a row of lilac bushes along the property line between the trailer and the woods. He was always disappointed that they never bloomed. Too shady, perhaps?
He put up several bird feeders behind the trailer, so you could see them from my parents’ bedroom window. We had every kind of bird, from titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, and cardinals to woodpeckers. I could hear whippoorwills every now and then at night (although, to this day, I’ve never seen one). He says he saw a great horned owl on the light pole behind the trailer once. Occasionally, we saw deer stroll out past his garden or poking their noses out from the underbrush. And rabbits. It was always a thrill to see a rabbit. It was a long time before I saw rabbits in Chicago.
In the field there were a couple of areas that had been dug out and were swampy. My father is a strange man in some ways. (I of course do not take after him in this respect. 🙂 He used to look around for what he could find, and one day he found a wild rosebush growing in one of these areas. He dug it up and tied it to a trellis. In June, I’d go out early in the morning and smell them, and take one or two for a little glass on my dresser.
I used to go out into the field or into clearings at the edge of the woods and picnic or read or play. Alone. I wasn’t supposed to go into the woods — the man who owned them didn’t want kids in there — and my parents were afraid I’d get into trouble, but eventually he told my dad once I was a good kid and he didn’t mind me. I still didn’t, because I was slightly afraid of who was hanging out in there (kids drinking, plus the owner’s daughter rode through on her horse with her dog, and the dog — a German shepherd — was pretty territorial). And, there was at one point a man who used to follow me when I was 14 or so, and I really didn’t want him to get me alone. Every now and then I’d try to explore, but I’d come to the boundaries too soon, or I would get disoriented about how far I’d gone and where I was.
My dad left the trailer park in 1987, to move to Pennsylvania to be nearer family since he was starting to have a series of heart attacks and strokes. Before he left, it was sold by the man who had owned it ever since I could remember and whom I had always thought of as middle-aged, but of course he, like my dad, had grown old. The new owner decided that the field was going to waste, so he put in plumbing, wiring, and more trailers. It was not the same. I saw it only once, when there weren’t that many trailers, but it was a sad thing, like losing a part of myself or what makes me myself.
I haven’t been back there since my dad left. A friend emailed me and told me that part of the woods on the corner had been cleared for a funeral home with parking lot. I have no idea how big it may be or how far it may extend, but I wondered if now, if you looked out our back window, you’d see a parking lot and a funeral home . . . I try not to let this bother me. It is all out of my hands, and the world goes on with or without me. And it’s the memories that count. Although losing greenwood to a funeral home seems cruel . . .
I have had recurring dreams about being in woods that go on forever, or open onto breathtaking vistas where I could live forever. They hurt. It’s like something that is so beautiful, so desirable that it causes pain.
One dream was a little different. I found the funeral home in the middle of a deep forest (not on a corner) and, although there were windows, it felt deserted, but it also felt like I was being watched. I wanted in for some reason — maybe just to see if it was real. It was white and blocky looking, more like a factory/warehouse building. I thought it was really a crematory. It was very out of place in both appearance and in feeling. It was a little like the impression left by a movie like Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The pace is off, the lighting is off, the whole feel is off somehow. It’s not real. Even in the context of a dream, it didn’t feel real.
Today, I dreamed that I did go back. Some of the details are fuzzy now, but the trailers in the field were gone, and the funeral home was irrelevant. The woods were like the woods of my other dreams — infinite, lush, mature, with hills, valleys, and streams — everything I could want. In my dream I somehow began to think that this is the way they always were and I didn’t know because the bad things (the funeral home, the trailers) hadn’t been there to reveal what was really there. Not very logical, necessarily, but in a strange way . . .
What was strangest of all was the view out the living room and kitchen windows, where the field had been, where the trailers had been, and where, going west, had been a line of trees before a lot and then the highway — where the evening star would rise, where my parents had once seen the aurora borealis. All over was now shining waters, and in the middle, a bridge — a bridge that connected to something at right angles at the further end, but to nothing — not even land — at the closer end. It was a huge, enclosed, iron bridge like I think I’ve seen in Buffalo, but somehow beautiful despite being industrial in design.
My vantage point was on an elevation looking over all this, as though I was no longer quite where I had been. And the geography had changed a little, too, because the water was where that treeline had been, and that didn’t seem to make sense to me. It made sense that here was a giant lake or ocean, but not that it expanded in that direction. Why had we never seen it before? Did someone remove the treeline and there it was all along? But how did it end up being where the field had been, too?
Last night I fell asleep while watching a British sitcom (I’d gotten less than 4 hours of sleep the night before and was sick with fatigue). When I woke up, snow was coming down, and the local PBS station was showing Ed Sullivan Christmas shows, like they did last year. Johnny Mathis was standing up in a thick white sweater singing “Sleigh Ride” (all the verses!). There was something about the combination of the snow outside, my candles that are a substitute for a fireplace, and the simplicity of the song and the presentation of it that evoked what the holidays felt like when I was a kid — the simplicity and the anticipation that comes closer to an ideal of Christmas than adults will let Christmas be.
Vintage Sears, Roebuck and Co. Maid of Honor timer
One of my favourite possessions is my mother’s Sears Maid of Honor kitchen timer. It’s a wheel that rotates on a pedestal. The numbers are in a Delft-like blue along the sides. The brand name is on the top (and includes Roebuck). You turn the wheel on the pedestal to align the time desired to the pointer. It’s fairly heavy for its size because it has a real bell. If you wind it to 60, it will ring long enough that you can’t miss it. I don’t know how old it is, but I would guess it dates from the 1950s.
I love it because of the vintage design and look. In the 1950s, it may have looked ultramodern, but today it looks classic. I love the color of the numbers and hash marks. I love the fluted rim of the top. Mostly, though, I love it because it was my mother’s, because I remember it perched in the front row of our glass-fronted west kitchen cabinet, until she took it out to time a cake or cookies or perhaps while she was making “Daisy’s fudge” for which she was admired among her friends and family.
Lately it is also a reminder of something my mother always told me — that I don’t take care of my things. One day after I moved to The Flamingo, I left my sacred Sears Maid of Honor timer on the kitchen counter, on top of a coffee can, thinking I would put it away in a few minutes. Then I fell sound asleep. Sure enough, a short time later, I was awakened by a loud crash; my young, inquisitive, and strong cat had knocked the timer to the floor, breaking some pieces off the pedestal. I glued the larger pieces I could find back on, and it works, but it’s not the same. My mother would not have allowed it to be broken through laziness.
For awhile, I looked online for information about the Sears Maid of Honor timer, but couldn’t find any. I gave up and didn’t look again for months. Then one day, probably while tired and bored, I looked again through google.com — and found one in excellent condition for sale. So I bought it. It came complete with the box! It’s brown with built-up dirt, but here’s the copy from the top and sides:
Maid of Honor portable household TIMER
60 minute interval
Alarm clock ring
Winds when you set it
Handsome plastic case
Color: White [stamped]
No. 4658
Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Simpsons-Sears Ltd. Made in U.S.A.
ACCURATE TIMING FOR: * Cooking and baking * Baby formulae * Sun lamp treatments * Home permanents * Telephone Calls * Bleaching
[Cartoon of woman in bikini under sun lamp]
Long alarm rings to remind you that time’s up. Sturdy, heat-resistant plastic case with rubber feet to protect polished surfaces. Modern design . . . fluted rim for firm grip . . . large numerals and extra wide minute intervals for accurate setting.
To set timer
Turn the top clockwise, passing stationary pointer on base. Rotate beyond 6 to activate the timing mechanism. Then timer may be set at any minute interval. The alarm ring gradually increases as you turn the top. It rings for 2 seconds when turned just past 6 minutes, for 14 seconds when moved to 60 minutes. For the longest possible ring, turn to 60 before setting. Timer may be reset forward or back during operation. Never turn past 0 as this damages the movement.
I have other timers that I use for baking and for waking me after one-hour naps. I even have an electronic digital timer I used at work for timing client-related jobs. While they are as functional as the Sears Maid of Honor timer (both of which are now safely and permanently stowed away), especially the multi-function electronic one, none is as interesting. They look like something you could get anywhere — because you could. The Sears Maid of Honor timer is unique.
At one time it wasn’t, of course. It appears that Sears Maid of Honor was once a popular line of modestly priced (knowing my parents) household gadgets, presumably designed for young brides.
Like most people, my parents had a lot of mass-produced items, some of which I saved because they hold some special memories or reminders of the security of my home. For example, I have a small, iridescence-coated glass, part of a set, that I used for cut roses from the wild rosebush that my dad salvaged from a low-lying area and planted against a trellis. No large, fancy, overbred rose will ever be as beautiful to me as those small, scented, wild blooms floating in the rainbow glass on my dresser. It’s not the object that matters, but the feelings associated with it. It’s good to have both.
Some of this attachment to objects may come from having grown up in a lower income bracket and having parents who grew up poor during the Great Depression. Our financial situation (or at least my dad’s perception of it) seems to have improved by the time I was a teenager, when he was working more hours at the Ford stamping plant to save for retirement. Until then, however, we did not buy a lot of durable goods unless necessary, nor would my dad throw out anything that could be useful. I suppose that’s part of why my mother used the same old Sears Maid of Honor timer for the duration of her married life (and life).
I sometimes wonder if today’s kids will feel the same way about the things they grew up with. Some women may feel an attachment to a favourite doll or stuffed animal, while men may hang onto and even add to their Hot Wheels collections. But do affluent kids who have so much love their things? It’s hard for me to imagine a lifelong emotional attachment to a mass-produced plastic toy or a modern kitchen timer. Will it someday look vintage? Will it evoke memories of a mother laboring for hours over fudge she wants to be perfect because it’s the one thing for which she is renowned in her small circle, for which she has received countless compliments and comments like, “Mine never turns out as well as yours, Daisy!”?
A couple of weeks ago, I was at the annual Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago. There’s a booth featuring carved wooden frogs and other toys. The frogs have ridged backs and come with a wooden stick. When you run the stick down the ridges, it produces frog-like croaking. The larger the frog, the deeper the croak. They’re charming toys — the kind I see as a precious keepsake in 20 or 30 years. I noticed the little boy next to me found them uninteresting — probably a child used to electronic beeps and flashing lights. His father, however, was sampling the sounds of all the frog sizes nearly obsessively and desperately trying to interest the boy in them. When I turned to look at him, I was surprised to find he was a young man — not the 40-something like myself I expected. He was enchanted with the frogs and hoping his son would be, too.
Twenty years from now, will the son remember that trip to the Christkindlmarket? Will he remember the brisk air, the flushed faces, the buzz of the crowd, the booths with their handmade wares, and the quaint croaking frogs?
