Home is Where you Hang your (Neighbor's) Keys

1970s neighbors. We had them. We loved them.

We ambled over to each other's homes several times a week to borrow items, to talk about vacation plans, to see if anyone wanted extra pie, to pilfer a fat and stable candle for the Halloween pumpkin, to stack wood, to help shovel sidewalks, to discuss the local hockey team. Sharing a driveway, we left our keys in our cars so anyone needing to move one to the street and then scoot out was kindly unencumbered. We were a tight bunch.

I do wonder if some of that tightness could also have been a result of having had the same exact house key.

Yes, the
same
exact
key.

Our home's sleek silver skeleton key opened ours and the front doors of three other homes on my block. The men who built our neigborhood in the early 1900s, deliberately or not, used the same key and lock set four times in a row on my side of the street.

Our front door had something called a mortise style lock. All you had to do was press a little convex bit of metal with your thumb and once it recessed, the door handle was in a secure, no budge, position. Two small M&M sized circles, forming a tiny brown snowman of sorts, lined up vertically on the inside edge of our door and the door butted up squarely against the jamb. If you hit one of those circles with your hip when carrying in a week's worth of brown paper grocery bags, or brushed them with your elbow while shoving the door with one arm and using the other to nudge the wet dog toward the kitchen so she couldn't shake mud on the colonial soldier wallpaper in the itty bitty foyer, then there's a good chance it was going to lock. But, as I said, it was truly no problem if you got caught on the outside looking in sans key. All you had to do was walk next door.

Passing over our shared crunchy gravel driveway, you'd reach the Poitier's front entrance in about five Red Rover style steps. Their house had the same layout as ours, as did the one next to theirs, and the one next to that one (hence the four identical keys.)

From where we sat, Pam and Bub Poitier seemed to have wondrous enthusiasm for everyday life. In the mornings, we'd see them rise before the sun and jog casually toward the high school track; or, if it was too wintry for sneakers, wax up their fiberglass cross country skis and glide down the snow-covered pavement, pompom hats set back upon their heads. On summer afternoons, they'd climb out their bedroom window and onto the lower level rooftop. Then, with sizeable mugs of sun brewed tea poured over ice, they would, in modest swimwear, lay idle on faded yellow towels from one of their many trips to St. Croix. Trim and fit, they exclusively wore LL Bean and Orvis clothing long before people thought looking like they were on a perpetual hike was cool.

I loved going to their home, relaxing on the lemonade porch across from their teenaged son, playing backgammon with their ebony stained and blonde glazed walnut pieces. Bub was an accomplished woodworker and willingly shared not only his beautifully refined board game but a slew of other home crafted pieces with my family. We had a handmade mailbox the size of a loaf of bread with a glossy finish and a gold plated knob, a six foot tall sturdy stand for Mom's always-reproducing spider plants, and a set of very groovy 70s inspired words (and arrows) that were secured with sawtooth picture hangers on the wall of our interior staircase. One said UP and the other DOWN (with arrows correspondingly placed in case anybody was confused, I suppose). He built our back yard picnic table, our cherry wood bird feeder, and a lovely set of book ends for my dog eared Judy Blumes.

The Poitier house was welcoming and toasty warm, especially from October through March when they constantly burned a fragrant log in their living room fireplace and governed a woodstove, downright tropical, in their back room. This form of home heating ensured that the Poitier family smelled a little like bacon at all times. When having something on loan from them, whether it was a recipe book or a record album or a gauzy gown for a school play, I'd press my nose to the object and inhale deeply a fragrance so Adirondacky and cabinesque.

We spent many holidays at our neighbors' home. We showed up on a few Christmas Eves, the occasional New Year's Day and always on the Fourth of July. They had dishes of Greek olives, backyard fireworks and Van Morrison and The Little River Band on their stereo. Their all-American, ruddy-faced, athletic older nephews would join in from across town, and from my corner chair vantage point with a napkin of oily olives in my lap, I'd behold their easy togetherness. So preppy, outdoorsy, and self-assured; eating hands full of Charlie's Chips from buff colored home delivered circular tins and singing along to all the modern records with gusto, not caring if crumbs were spilling down their wrinkled oxford cloth shirts onto their penny tucked Weejuns.

They had one telephone that I know of in that house. It was yellow, securely mounted to the kitchen wall with an extra, extra, extra long springy cord, stretched out and devoid of some of its coil. If someone was eating in the dining room, you could easily bring them the receiver from the kitchen. The entire outer cover of the phone was plastered with blue oval Chiquita banana stickers. I never asked why but it seemed the epitome of careless cool. Eat a banana, stick a sticker on the phone. I miss that sort of kitsch. Our current insatiability for perfect decor has, for me at least, ruined all of that ironic fun. Give me a banana phone any day.

My father put our home up for sale when he got remarried and wife #2 decided she didn't want to live on the best freaking street in the universe. The Poitiers moved soon thereafter, and Bub has regrettably passed away, but I reconnected with Pam during the Christmas season of 2018. I wrote her my very first 'letter to friends' which detailed much of what I shared here along with a few other personal thoughts. So, not only were the Poitiers dear friends and fantastic neighbors, they are, for me, inspirations of the best possible kind. They, among others, have inspired me to enjoy the out of doors, to be creative, to open my house for holiday gatherings, and they have inspired me to write.

Three cheers for good neighbors!

If you would like, I can introduce you to more neighbors in future posts.
We had a bandleader, a professional ball player, and more!
Comments are welcome.


(P.S. Pam and Bub Poitier are not my neighbors' names. I have changed them in the spirit of being neighborly since I have not asked permission from Pam for this post.)

#neighbors #1970s #VanMorrison #LittleRiverBand #CharliesChips #Chiquita #backgammon #lemonadeporch #LLBean #Orvis #mortise #skeletonkey #JudyBlume #Weejuns #greekolives #mushroomtumbler

Life in a Northern Town - Corner Store Edition

When we were kids we could buy beer.

Really, we could.

Just float this seven year old a few wrinkly bills along with a handwritten note from a parent and if Cooney was behind the counter at the small corner store, I'd be heading back with a quart of Genny,  and a six inch cellophaned cardboard rectangle of thin pretzel sticks for me in five minutes flat; hugging the brown paper bag oh so carefully, and stepping over cracks in the sidewalk the whole walk home. My friends, also with a note, could buy cigarettes for their parents, at 45 cents a pack. So think about this, for a dollar you could bribe your child and two of her friends to go grab you your smokes and some Chuckles and they'd still return with change!

This is life in a Northern town, folks. What a great place to grow up in during the 1970s.

Our way of life was simpler then, with these small corner stores open for business every few blocks. Our families bought our staples and other goods like the thick and colorful Sunday paper, a bottle of cream soda and some tin-foiled jiffy pop for watching Sha Na Na with the babysitter, and, in the spring, pastel woven May baskets for special neighbors and night crawlers for fishing.

We had a dozen little mom and pop markets like this in my hometown while I was growing up, and I understand we had even greater numbers than that before I was born.

Knickerbocker's was my favorite, being the place to go to for Bazooka gum, Tootsie Rolls, Fireballs and Swedish fish before church school. Having a palm sized paper bag of molar-rotting confections made the singing of Father Abraham Had 7 Sons all the more enjoyable. I remember half my 7th grade class receiving permission to attend a mid day funeral for a friend and all of us walking from school to church. En route the majority of us stopped at Knickerbocker's to buy pocket-sized packets of Kleenex. Mr. Knickerbocker was so concerned about so many kids being out of school at eleven o'clock, and questioned us for so many details, we were almost late for the mass.

Each corner store had its regular customers, mostly neighborhood folks who would stop in daily for sundries and a quick chat with the owners, all of whom had enormous personalities. Having a reliable bicycle, and parents who trusted our small town was a navigable safe spot for a small child, I was able to partake of them all.

Here is what I remember (and what some good old friends have recently helped me to recall...)

Stafford's would be first to have the latest Archie, Josie and the Pussycats and Betty & Veronica comic books. I always went in looking for the thick Archie double digests. Mrs. Stafford, an avid knitter, would sit behind the counter, keeping eagle eyes on all of the kids, almost daring them to try and pocket a piece of candy. The Staffords had a friendly old hound that lay out front of the store, and occasionally, newborn kittens in blanket-lined cardboard boxes over by the cooler; not to be missed, in case you needed to pick up a cat for home, too.

Orange Crush, Grape Nehi and Yoohoo were always on ice at Beaulah's. Making handcrafted dolls for the neighborhood girls was something special which she was known for and a friend of mine held onto hers for 45 years, only very recently selling them to a local lady who recognized them at her late father's estate sale and felt a nostalgic pull.

If cash was short, Robillard's, who operated their store in the front part of their modest city home behind sturdy and impenetrable thick glass windows, ran Dad a tab for necessities until payday when they'd settle up.

My friends and I would grab fudgesicles and Hershey's ice pops at Butterfield's on warm June strolls home from school. Mr. Butterfield, a decorated war veteran, had no trouble orchestrating the store's form and function, despite being totally blind. I ponder those facts today and choke up with regret that we kids didn't engage him more fully.

In gangs of ten or more ('dead end kids', many parents laughingly called us), we'd ride our bikes to Roth's on sweaty summer afternoons after a dunk in the river; sandy feet allowed without question on the grey asphalt square tiles as we frantically grabbed our dots, wax bottles, and baseball cards with the flat pink gum. We paid for everything with pennies, counted out two at a time in our grubby little fingers as we stood on tiptoes at the chrome counter. "See you later!" we'd bellow to one another, contentedly jumping on banana seats and pedaling homeward.

Barber's market was our family's deli, bakery, and our all around place for groceries. I shopped there at least four times a week for my mother, who pressed dollars carefully into my palm and reminded me not to dawdle or stop or cut through the backyards of our kind and benevolent abutting neighbors, whose yards, as you can imagine, I always tromped through. Petting their dogs, dancing through their sprinklers, and waving to them as I walked along on my way to get bread, milk and Imperial margarine seemed like such fun, and if anyone was bothered that I was tiptoeing through their tulips they never said so.

Today, I make an effort to strike up conversations with store employees at the local Hannaford and Price Chopper. Some are ripe for this human element of what they do, but others are too harried with the work at hand or are less social than I.

Regularly walking by the long closed and shuttered Barber's market, I think, "What if?" Seeing someone open that place back up so that we could all gather and shop on the daily, holding babies and reusable shopping bags, while chatting about the goings on in our beautiful little town would put so much love in my heart.

And I know I'm not alone.

#pennycandy #cornerstore #Barbersmarket #Butterfields #Cooneys #Knickerbockers #Staffords #Beaulahs #Roths #Robillards #Archie #comics #JosieandthePussycats #BettyandVeronica #Hersheys #shopping #1970s #baseballcards #swedishfish #Chuckles #ShaNaNa #LifeinaNorthernTown #mushroomtumbler

G.I. Bluesberry Yogurt and the Summer of '76

The kids down the street had a mom named Sharon. Sharon loved Elvis. 

In particular, she was a fan of the G.I. Blues album with a young trim E.A.P., all cleaned up on the cover, sans sideburns, facing left with his lips parted slightly in a sexy half sneer. 

She also loved the KISS Destroyer album. Although they don't seem complimentary at first blush, they became an easy way to determine what I was going to find upon entering their second story apartment any given summer afternoon. 

 

If KISS was playing as I ascended the stairs, I knew that Sharon would be up and about, dressed in her cutoffs and a gauzy blouse displaying cleavage. With her black waist length hair brushed 100 strokes and beaded Indian earrings sweeping her shoulders, she might possibly even be cooking something. I learned every word to that leathery, colossal booted, Jewfro KISS Destroyer album the summer of 1976 because when she was happy Sharon would listen to it over and over as we girls played Yahtzee or the game of Life on their lacerated beast of a dining room table. We'd pound our little 6, 5 and 4 year old fists yelling "You wanted the best! You got the best!" Little pigtailed heads bopping to the beat, sweat beading on our upper lips, we sang until our throats ached and we collectively lost our minds in Detroit Rock City. Sharon used get really excited about the line "First I drink and then I smoke!" and she'd light up her cigarette with an expert flick of a match, warbling about making the midnight show.

It was a far rougher, different scene than what I would hear and see at home. My parents had music on our turntable at all times too but we surely didn't have any KISS...or cigarette smoke. There was an element of danger and disarray at Sharon's with overflowing ashtrays strewn about, random items of male and female clothing draping every square inch of the furniture, and carpets chock full of dog hair though their dog had died the summer before. As I sat on the toilet, which was never bleach clean, I'd gaze up at the assortment of stretched out bras the color of dirty water hung over the shower curtain, and I'd tentatively glance over at the stack of Easy Rider magazines in their grungy old metal magazine rack

The Easy Riders were Grandy's. He was the father figure and proud owner of two of the kids and two vintage Harleys, each with hand-painted gas tanks. Folks on our block would argue about which was prettier, the one with the blue teardrops or the one with the orange lightening. I always preferred the turquoise watery paint but it seemed cooler to like the firebolts. Grandy wore a black helmet with no face shield and a leather vest three sizes too small as he took off riding. They had no car...Sharon worked within walking distance of the house and Grandy cruised to work in good weather or got a ride when the rain, wind, or snow was a challenge. Since so many of our townspeople worked in the same mill, and gas was so prohibitively expensive, carpooling was really common.

One afternoon, hotter than hell (also one of Sharon's KISS albums in rotation, along with Love Gun and Destroyer), I marched up the back rickety wooden stairs to my own cadence of "Christine Sixteen". Stepping over candy wrappers, broken toys, and small tools, I reached the top and the eldest of three daughters met me there with a furrowed brow and her index finger up to her lips.

"Shhh" was what she said but she didn't need to because I heard G.I. Blues and that was never good.

I wanted nothing better than to turn and high tail it back down the precarious steps; but though I was only 6, I knew I had to stay and try to help if I could. Sharon was supine on the couch with the drapes drawn, in a heavy veil of menthol smoke while her 4 year old daughter sat on the dirty rug beside her; her normally bouncy flaxen hair stuck in strings to the back of her clammy little neck. Sharon was alternately weeping and humming and singing and smoking. She was also drinking. It wasn't the first time I'd seen a drunk person but I was unaccustomed to it so unabashedly on display, heavy with emptiness and despair.

I suspect, looking back, that she may've lost someone special. Maybe her first love, maybe in the Vietnam War. Sharon's first born child had perpetually tan olive-hued skin, stick straight black hair, coffee brown eyes, and a sharp tongue prone to bad tempers. She always seemed ready to brawl and, while being punished, never flinched or cried out. I know this because Sharon, in a freakish display of psycho-grandeur would whip the girls with a flyswatter on their porch in front of any and all curious passers-by.

Where daughter #1 had ice in her veins, daughter #2 was artsy, flighty, feminine and quiet. She also had milky white skin that alternately burned and peeled all summer long and light brown curls. Daughter #3 was bone china complected, with a healthy pink pout and yellow fuzzy locks. She was also routinely whiny and argumentative, but only with us girls. With her Mama, she was the brow smoother, the cold cloth fetcher, the 4 year old caregiver.

On those dark G.I. Blues days the girls had to make their own dinners. They usually settled on blueberry yogurt, easy to grab and soothing in the heat. I made sure I was gone by the time the foils were peeled open because I knew I did not want to be there when Grandy arrived on that scene. After having reported the yogurt dinner menu to my own mother, leaving out the drawn shades, chain smoking, and wailing, my mother quietly commented that good mothers provided more than yogurt for dinner.

One lazy Sunday, the girls sauntered down the street for flashlight tag chewing gristle and bones, proud that they'd had charcoal grilled meat like the rest of us. Someone in the crowd told them to toss the sharp objects before play began and the three of them looked sick at heart at having to drop their beefy badges of normalcy.

An old flame made me a mix tape in the 1990s and knowing that I was in the KISS Army, he picked a Destroyer song to include among the other tunes. The mix tape came with a song list but actually playing and hearing the song aloud brought on a visceral reaction for which I was unprepared. Having not listened to Destroyer in its entirety since the summer of 1976 and having not heard a KISS song in a quiet solitary atmosphere, quite possibly, ever, I was running a bath when Do You Love Me came swinging out of my stereo speakers like a giant gut punch. I slid down to the linoleum and wept. All I could think of was Sharon, dancing with her wooden spoon up to her mouth like a mic over a grimy stove top, a pot of water boiling for spaghetti.

I'll never know what became of them. Without a word, they moved out of town following a year of Sharon not being able to lift herself off the couch for walks to work or trips to the grocery store or fucked up exhibitions of discipline on the high porch. 

Maybe a geographic fix led to help with her depression and drinking. Maybe the music could continue and she could listen to G.I. Blues without it destroying her peace. Maybe she is dancing to KISS in a half buttoned shirt, with dirty bare feet, and a soft pack of Merits. I can only hope so.  

NOTE: My favorite KISS song remains "Do You Love Me?" I can listen to it now and appreciate the memories of my life and times that helped shape me. 

I really like rock and roll...all of the fame and the masquerade. I love the concerts and studios. And all of the money, honey, that you make. 

#1970s #KISS #KISSARMY #DetroitRickCity #DoYouLoveMe #Elvis #GIBlues #EastRider #HarleyDavidson #Merit #blueberryyogurt #mushroomtumbler

God Wink #3

Yesterday I walked the min pin in the city with the hubs. Over near my childhood home, our pal Linda (who feeds the min pin treats and offers kind attention and neighborly conversation to all three of us) came bounding out of her house with her purse-sized pups at her heels, waving a thick and colorful seed catalog.

She said she'd been waiting patiently for us to come by because she knows I admire her wine colored, grapefruit sized zinnias and she wanted to give us the book so I could order some for myself this year.

We took a collective look at the cover as Linda pointed out that I kinda look like the gal on the front of the seed catalog. Hubs concurred. I never think I look like anyone but, weirdly enough, in this instance, I do. I took it as a sign I should probably order them and thanked her for the book.

Then, as if that weren't enough of a God wink, later in the afternoon a neighbor on the other side of the 'hood dropped a large envelope of reclaimed zinnia seeds in our mailbox as a thank you for a time when I shared bulbs with her.

Zinnias? Twice on a January day? What are the odds?

Total God wink.

#Zinnias #JohnnysSeedCatalog #mushroomtumbler

Sparking Joy with Grandpa and Moo Moo

 

Every Christmas was the same. A bottle of Johnny Walker for Grandpa and the latest Avon glass candle for Moo Moo.

40 years ago, when gathering together was more important than a bunch of gifts, a single present was enough to make anyone's holiday jolly in my family. There's something reassuring about getting the same treat every year, or a version of it. There are no fears that things are changing when you sort of know what's coming. Time stands still even though we are aware of its passing. The importance of tradition, for us, cannot be overstated. A single, thoughtful, highly anticipated gift made us feel remembered, loved, and comfortable.

I miss those days.

My Grandpa, if he were alive today, would be dumbfounded by Marie Kondo Sparking Joy by cleaning closets and her other highly touted simplification measures. Grandpa could have taught all of us a thing or two about plain living and avoiding our desire to amass a bunch of crap that no one needs.

Seriously. Why do we have all this CRAP?

He had one pair of slippers. They were corduroy, from Sears, and got replaced every Father's Day. The old ones got tossed away.

He had one pair of sneakers. They were white low top Converse, made during an era when all Converse made were white (actually they were sort of off white) sneakers. The only choice you had was whether you wanted high or low cut.

He had one coffee mug and if he said "Get me my coffee mug" you knew damn well which one to grab.

He had one favorite cereal (Frosted Flakes), one favorite cookie (Mallowmars), one favorite soda (Pepsi) and one favorite everyday meal (meatballs, heavy on the venison, over spaghetti with salad and, you guessed it, one salad dressing...oil and red wine vinegar, always hand blended in the same Tupperware cruet.)

He only drove Fords. He only wore Dickies trousers (in only three colors, olive, tan, and navy). His favorite movie was "Midway" and we watched it over and over when VHS and VCRs were invented. His favorite musical was "South Pacific" because he was a WWII Navy veteran. He knew all the words to Bali Hai. I'm not sure if it was his favorite, but we sang that three note song like Bloody Mary herself. "Bali Hai may call youuuuuuuuu. Come away, come away."

He camped and God help you if you tried to convince him to take any other kind of vacation.

He enjoyed living in his two family home which he and Moo Moo owned for close to 50 years. It allowed them to provide an inexpensive apartment for countless family members just starting out before they could afford to buy a home of their own. My parents and I benefitted from living in the downstairs half of that two family ourselves for a couple of years.

He liked restaurant food, but only certain food from specific restaurants, all within a 5 mile radius of his house. If he wanted a fish fry, we knew to go get it from Gene's. If he wanted liver and onions, you'd be foolish to get it from anywhere else other than Vivian's. If he wanted Kung Pau Chicken, it'd better come from Yip's, and that's it.

He drove a truck for Dorn's transportation even though he started out professionally, post wartime, as a law clerk. Eventually, the idea of clerking indoors all day made him unhappy and uncomfortable.  Becoming a Teamster was something he loved talking about. He was proud to be a union guy. He had one tie tack, Teamster logo. He probably had one tie.

His life was simple but it was not boring. It was enjoyably jam packed with people. He had more company than any person I ever knew, to this day, because he was involved with and knew everyone in his community and also because he kept the front door unlocked at all times. People just came and went all evening long, and eventually, once he became disabled and unable to work, all day long too.

I'd visit and hear the familiar banging of the entrance door; it was a massive wood portal that had a big rattly glass panel in the center which made the house shake when slammed shut. No one ever yelled, "Don't slam that door!" because you had to really put your weight behind it to close it all the way. That entrance door led to a lengthy hallway, that then led to Moo Moo and Grandpa's front door into the flat. We kids and Grandpa always played the game of guessing who was coming down that hallway by how they closed the door, the noises they made (if any) and their footsteps. Grandpa got it right almost every time.

"Here comes Al.', he'd say and in would pop my Great Uncle, who'd puff clouds of Burley and Bright Half and Half pipe smoke in his face as he bent down to enthusiastically shake my Grandpa's hand. Then Al would march off to the kitchen to see if there was any coffee. He'd reach on top of the refrigerator to grab his little slide top tin of saccharin tabs. Everyone knew they were his.

"Here comes Marc", and my teenaged cousin would come in, with his thick-lensed 1977 brown framed glasses, spinning his red, white and blue ABA basketball expertly on his middle finger. "What's up, Unc?" Marc would grin and say, giving my Grandpa the soul brother handshake, popular at that time. Marc almost never ate dinner before coming over. He knew he could stay a while, enjoy warm leftovers and play Pong, which my grandparents had hooked up to their bulky wooden television console at all times. Despite having no kids at home, they were the first people on the block to have a video game attached to their TV because people who stopped by might just want to play electronic table tennis.

"Here comes Jimmy", and Jim, who lived next door, would burst in. "Hey Uncle Ed!" he'd say with a loud and deliberate delivery and then he'd sit down on the couch next to my Grandpa's chair and talk nonstop about whatever happened to be on his mind that minute. It could be Giants football, the fact that his roof was leaking or the notion of global thermonuclear war but the level of intensity was always the same with my beloved cousin. Because Grandpa maintained an even keel at all times, and knew a little about a lot, everybody found him approachable and easy to sit with.

One of my favorite stories about him and me (and I have hundreds, but I need to wrap this up) took place when I was 16. I'd had my permit for a little over two months and wanted some vehicular freedom so Dad told me to pick him up at work that Friday night and we'd go to Moo Moo and Grandpa's for dinner. My father was working a new job, about a 45 minute drive from home and his girlfriend drove him that day.  Although she offered, I pigheadedly eschewed directions, probably with a wave of my jelly-bangled hand. I've GOT THIS. Plus, it was the '80s. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, it was December and I took a very wrong turn. I drove around for at least an extra half hour, a lost, shivering, wreck. Calling from a mighty sketchy payphone in the dark I heard Moo Moo answer the phone. "Where ARE you?" she said, with a worried tone I was not accustomed to hearing. "I don't KNOW!" I shouted, completely low on gas, blood sugar and patience. "Ask her what she SEES!" shouted Grandpa from his chair. I rattled off two completely random landmarks as Moo held the phone in the air for him to hear and he calmly stated, "Oh. She's on the corner of Columbia and Congress in Cohoes" and he was right.

My grandmother came and I followed her 15 out of the way miles back to her house. My father, thankfully, had managed a ride. The four of us chuckled for an hour over Kung Pau Chicken (you know where it was from) and each time someone lumbered in, having body slammed the door, shaken off the cold and snow, and pulled up a chair, we retold the events of the evening while digging into the Chinese food and howling, over and over. In fact, we couldn't wait for the next visitor to come in because Grandpa was now saying his part aloud and hooting with delight at each retelling.

By the way, my single Christmas gift that year from Grandpa was a map. I shit you not.

#JohnnyWalker #Avon #Converse #FrostedFlakes #Mallowmar #Tupperware #Ford #Dickies #Midway #SouthPacific #BaliHai #Cohoes #BurleyandBright #mushroomtumbler #1980s #1970s

My husband Vinny

My husband just told me a story about 9 young kids trying to outrun the local law, in a stolen panel van, which they recklessly smashed into the front of a hospital taking out one of their 100 year old granite pillars.

He described them as "yoots".

"Yoots?" I said.

"Yoots." He replied.

I shall be calling him Vinny (not his real name) for the rest of the day.

#yoots #mycousinvinny #mushroomtumbler

Tippy Toes, Rat Fink, Crazy Legs and The Microwave - That's the Way (uh huh uh huh) I Like It.

When my husband and I met I was a rollerblader. 

Growing up roller skating, like a lot of girls in my neighborhood, I skated non stop: to and from school; at the local roller rink every opportunity possible; and, of course if you read my blog post about Basement Boogie you know I was a sucker for a good 1970s homestyle underground skate.

I also grew up in a hockey family so when I didn't have roller skates on my feet, I was donning ice skates. In fact, the first job I ever had at the ripe old age of ten was teaching MIGHTY MITES (pre-K hockey babies) to skate by pushing folding chairs at the Civic Center.
Don't fall, kid, or you're face planting into metal. 

Simple as that. 

Quick learner!

Good boy. 

This was all new to my husband, raised in the urbs (as opposed to the suburbs). He was a hoop player, a boxer, a runner, a pitcher, and a weight lifter, definitely not a skater...ever. However, I told him rolling along was super simple to learn (and convinced him that 16 years ago...with help from a sleek metal folding chair...I was THE BEST skating teacher ever!) and he trusted me. 

Silly boy.

No, really, he did fine, so long as 'fine' means narrowly escaping flattening by a Dodge. Read on. 

The first place I took him was a busy road in our urban locale and he, right out of the gate, went down a sizeable hill. Looking back, I wonder what in the hell we were doing. Maybe I figured he was so coordinated in every other way, how could he not be a natural on the insanely beautiful  rollerblades that we'd just picked out and dropped a cool hundred on? Maybe he was trying to impress me by just going for it? I might have blocked some of this out to spare myself the guilt. 

Well, whatever we were thinking, he made it to the bottom of that hill by the grace of God. Looking a lot like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz...when his stuffing was on fire...hubs was all knees and elbows, making breathy puffing noises as he rolled on by at a frighteningly fast clip, I was Dorothy off to the side with my hair in braids and my mouth in the shape of an "o", holding my hands in prayer position as I watched him cross the road in a giant, unadvisable, dangerous as feck back and forth pattern; at one point careening very haphazardly in front of a Ram truck with step sides that almost took him out. When he turned around at the bottom of the hill and gave me a big grin with two thumbs up, I decided we were only going blading indoors from that point on. Love you, babe!

To his credit, he enthusiastically committed and we began rollerblading at an indoor skating rink a few nights a week. Not only was it good exercise but it was a way for us, in our new relationship, to spend time together doing three things that I freaking loved: 

1. Skating 

2. Listening to music 

3. Drinking ICEES with those fat, spoon straws. 

To our delight and surprise, we encountered many of the same folks each time we went. Who knew that there was such an active adult community of roller people? Who knew how defined their personalities would become as the weeks went on? During our car trips over I'd wonder aloud, "Who do you think will be there?" and hubs would name our four favorite regulars. Now don't get the wrong idea...we hadn't made any personal acquaintances, we were sort of doing our own thing there, but we had given a few memorable guys fun and recognizable nicknames. To let you in on a little secret - I'm sort of a professional nicknamer. I nicknamed an entire residence of fraternity boys in 1989 - like Bluto in Animal House, only my GPA was well above 0.0 at the time and I don't like green Jell-O.

More about that another time. Back to the story at hand!

First there was Tippy Toes. Do you remember Eight is Enough? Tippy Toes looked like what Nicholas would look like 25 years post EIE, with the same hair do, a pleasantly cultivated beer gut, and enough confidence for three people. (For those of you who don't recall, Nicholas is the little cutie on the bottom of this picture, sandwiched between Tom and Mary Bradford.) Anyway, if there were government presiding over the rink, Tippy would have been the mayor. He wore well loved roller skates from, I'm guessing, the 1970s; a sort of a grungy light tan with newer ebony wheels and worn navy blue toe stops.  The dude was not light by any means - he probably tipped the scales at about 260 - but damn, if he wasn't the freaking Fred Astaire of the roller rink. He would, when he saw someone he knew, which was pretty much everyone, immediately skate backward in front of the person, with this loose limbed swagger that suggested he was just as comfy grooving in reverse as he was forward. He'd flip his 1970's dirty blonde bowl cut bangs out of his eyes, and nod his head casually as he chatted up the nervous ladies, with their stiff wrists and locked elbows, small stepping around the oval rink, in careful time to the beat. If they were indeterminately slow, he'd literally skate circles around them, and funk himself back to a reverse glide, mane flipping, fleshy pouch bobbing a little from beneath his tshirt, and gumby legging all the while. His favorite song was Keep it Comin' Love but if the DJ played anything at all by KC and the Sunshine band, he'd skate alongside the rail and wildly clap toward all the bystanders (or is it byskaters?) soliciting them to come out and celebrate like he was a mascot at a high school pep rally. I don't know what Tippy did for a living but maybe he was some sort of professional encourager? He was a truly enthusiastic ambassador for the sport. 

Next up: Rat Fink. Rat Fink was the rink's wiry, mustached Yenta, telling Susie Q that Frankie D thought she was totally awesome, and so on, but really, he was no matchmaker. He was just a gossipy adult young man that liked stirring up roller drama under the flashing rainbow strobe lights. He'd grab some Bon Jovi-esque frosted and permed chickee once she was freshly laced up and beginning to roll and notify her how the heavy metal haired fellow she bounced with the other night lovingly skated with someone else as soon as she left. Then, he'd pull handfuls of paper napkins from the plastic snack bar dispensers and with, what appeared to be fake concern, hand them over when she'd go into full blown hysteria at the thought of Tippy, for example, enjoying the moonlight skate with Busty Beverly. It was a really weird thing to witness, seeing as I'd graduated from middle school like 18 years prior. How Rat Fink managed to even grab the attention of these babes remains one of the great roller rink mysteries for me. He was about 120 pounds soaking wet, and although he had the perfect build for, say, acid washed Levis and a nice crisp white tee to compliment his light colored pricy blades, he always wore faded sweatshirts with the cuffs and neck cut out and trash bag style bottoms from those two piece track suits so popular in the early 1990s. His legs would rub each other with this disconcertingly loud swishy friction, only heard in the snack bar, thank God, but I always knew, mid sip in my ICEE, that it was him rolling up on me. Hubs just said, when I asked if he remembered Rat Fink, "Oh yeah, he was that Jeff Gillooly-looking scrawny guy, right?" 'Nuff said. 

Oh! Let's talk about Crazy Legs! Crazy Legs was a character. He wore a lemon yellow sweat band on his head and yellow and white striped terry cloth wrist wraps, too, which I truly believe were for form as well as function, since he bladed faster than anyone else there. He was like a roller-greyhound in the race of his life. One night we figured out the reason he was so flipping fast, besides being rail thin and possibly Ginseng-ed up, was that he wore speed skate inline blades. Like, he had an extra wheel in there or something (not totally sure, because his tootises were just a blur of cosmic green pigment whirring by us, lap after lightening lap) that made him uncatchable. His ability to do anything besides catapulting forward was impeded by the unusual skates but, thankfully, going forward like a 6 foot WASPy Sonic the Hedgehog seemed to be his favorite thing...in life...ever. Hubs said he saw him come flying into the men's room and crash into a urinal (or a urinal user) more than an uncomfortable couple of times. Having an extra wheel meant no rubber stops on the front of those babies, which I am sure, led to some interesting stories (and injuries) over the years.  

The Microwave was the last regular with whom we were enamored. He was fierce, rotational, and heatin' it up - beep beep! The Microwave was a trick skater, performing for us in the middle of the rink with a lot of heeling and toeing and spinning and posing. He was also the first person I ever saw who left the ankle portion of his roller skates flopped over and unlaced in sort of a devil may care style that suggested he was way too cool for what was going on here, but he was still down for the party. Hubs just reminded me that when the SHUFFLE skate was announced and G.Q. Disco Nights Rock-Freak was queued on the DJ's turntable, The Microwave would come bolting onto the floor from wherever he might be as though he'd just won a turn in the all you can grab flying money booth. That kind of joy is hard to come by, friends, but he was stoked like that several times a night and it was a riot to witness. 

'Shuffling' was the pinnacle of the evening for most of these regular coasters. It was a time to chug along the floor, train style, holding the waist or the shoulders of the person in front of you all the while with the precision of a Rockette, rhythmically pumping your legs in a sort of half moon movement in time to the disco beat. When done well, it was pure poetry in motion. Pure, touchy, forbidden in any other part of society poetry in motion, but still cool as hell to watch. Hubs and I shuffled in our own little way but we weren't part of the conga line like the regulars were. I preferred the songs Good Times (Chic) and Genius of Love (Tom Tom Club) for shuffling, but you could see the light in the eyes of the regular crew when any and all of the shuffling tunes were announced. It was like when the aliens hypnotically lurch toward the mother ship in the old sci-fi movies.

Shufffff-fulllllllllll.

Just writing this makes me want to hose off the blades, now shelved in the garage, covered in the dirt and dust of neglect. Hubs's blades are right next to mine. We have lost our wrist guards and knee pads over the years, not that we ever used them, but we could probably benefit from them today.

Spring's coming. Shuffling shall be on the to-do list. No hills for hubs, though. No hills, no how.

#1970s #1980s #rollerskating #rollerblading #icee #eightisenough #Chic #LeFreak #TomTomClub #GeniusofLove #KCandtheSunshineBand #KeepitComingLove #Bluto #AnimalHouse #RockFreak #DiscoNights #mushroomtumbler