Come Meet your New Sister at The Penny

In the 1980s, orientation of college freshmen was quite a contrast with what goes on today. In my day, I arrived a full week prior to the beginning of classes to get used to all that was new - location of classes, eating in the dining hall, quarter driven laundry facilities, and where to buy all my textbooks, 3x5 notecards, folders, and notebooks (there were no computers, folks!). At-risk students were cared for an entire month prior, carefully taking zero-credit primers for college and meeting regularly with counseling staff so that they got off on the right foot.

After the moving in, which consisted of: posters for the wall; two suitcases (one of which held shoes); a Columbia backpack, which would be for carting books but was at that time full of personal hygiene items and makeup; my well worn yet well loved 8th grade boom box and my purse, we were thrown into two full days of carefully orchestrated orientation activities, some of which were helpful and most of which were fluff. The part of early arrival I liked most was the opportunity, as a brand new freshman, to find some friends and start creating a social circle before getting down to the brass tacks of book learning.

Upon arrival I found an orientation packet on my bare mattress. I'd been assigned a big sister named Karen. A female mentor of sorts; she was an upper classman who'd kindly volunteered for the role. Her duty as assigned was to be available to me in a one on one capacity should I need any help adjusting during the first week. I was given her full name, major, and room location. Then it was up to me to find her if I wanted to.

Karen was an orientation leader so I bumped into her on day two without having to seek her out. Most of the orientation leaders acted as though they'd multiple pots of strong coffee; there was so much yelling and dancing and jumping in order to prove to us how much fun we were going to have at college, but Karen was reservedly chill in her approach. Looking around at those clowning and leaping about, she presented her points about how to be a successful note taker quite succinctly and without any unnecessary cheerleading. During the required introduce yourself in a circle exercise, she heard my name and after she was done with the notetaking information blitz, sat next to me on the grass. Down to earth and self assured in her popped collar black Izod shirt and armfuls of colorful woven friendship bracelets, she sized me up, asking a few pointed questions. Finding the answers apparently suitable, she invited me to come to her room the following day. She lived in one of the many (carved up) Victorian style homes on campus and I was dying to go inside one as I lived in a sterile five story dormitory with all the rest of the freshman. She said I could meet her house sisters and learn about what they, as junior class members, were all about. I didn't feel like I needed mentoring but I wholly looked forward to making friends who had some expertise about college survival.

On day three of orientation week, I went to Karen's room. She and three of her sisters were lounging about, smoking cigarettes and day drinking. I was completely surprised by this since throughout the course of orientation there were almost no overt references to room gatherings of this type. Karen was so relaxed she seemed medicated. Her door was wide open, there was no fear of anyone walking by and "busting" them like the highly caffeinated orienteers warned about, they had Bad Company playing on the stereo and my presence made no ripples.

No one got up, so I just went in and sat on the side of a nicely made bed. I saw lots of photographs, and noted their huge shag carpet remnant, suggesting there would be a lot more floor sitting and casual gathering going on in there. Karen introduced me around the room.

The first girl I first met was Karen's roommate Lissa, overly dressed for the occasion. I later learned that she suited up like she was heading to work in Manhattan no matter what time or day of the week it was. She was always outfitted in heels (every.single.day.), super tight pencil skirts, long jewel toned blazers with contrasting pocket squares, a full face of heavy, almost theatrical, makeup and mountains of shoulder pads. She had been blessed with thick, shiny black hair as evidenced by her family photos but she had bleached it during her college years to a jarringly brassy blonde. It was sprayed and teased in true Bon Jovi style, bangs reaching for the sky and the rest of it reaching halfway down her back in a woolly convergence of overly processed curls. Although she was the quietest, by sheer appearance she drew the most attention.

Karen's other friends hanging out in the room were Chrissy and June. They were a rather tall and very short dead ringer for one another. Coca Cola rugby shirt and jean wearing mulleted besties, both dating suitemates in one of the more large and modern dorms, they finished each other's sentences and pantomimed as though they were constantly responsible for entertaining kindergarten children while speaking.

Karen, Lissa, Chrissy and June were all elementary education majors. When I asked about their confidence in their major of choice, they all groaned. They talked about how difficult is was going to be to get jobs when they were done with school. They talked about having to have reliable transportation to make it to their student teaching experiences had proved difficult. They talked about how teacher pay sucked and how they'd need to find roommates (or husbands) before graduation in order to be able to afford both an apartment and the expense of attending graduate school part time in order to fulfill our state's new Masters degree requirements.

I felt uneasy listening to their words and worried about my future before school had even begun.

Two of the four had those initially super sounding suitemate boyfriends. But then Chrissy lamented how crappy their relationships were and how they had to constantly chase these guys down to get them to pay a smidgen of attention to them. June cataloged and gesticulated as though she had a large invisible list in front of her about how the boys' basketball practices and games, dorm parties, and, later in the evenings, their jobs at a local beer distribution center were their true priorities; their schoolwork came in a distant fourth. The girls, who appeared to have been with these guys a while, didn't even register on this 'list'. The two of them exchanged knowing glances and physically reached out, during what I perceived as their glum cautionary tales, touching each other's knees while reassuring one another with 'uh huh' and 'oh I know' as though this shoddy rapport cheerless sorority of sorts was all they expected and deserved.

Now I was distressed about both my educational choices and the availability of a decent future boyfriend.

Lissa placidly and tactfully followed their tales of woe by explaining that she was newly engaged and her fiancé also lived on campus. They hailed from the same hometown and would both return there to become teachers at schools they'd already picked out. Their lives, at the tender age of 20, were thoughtfully planned. They were an anomaly.

Karen, completely nonplussed by any of what had been shared, seemed to like the idea of not being tied down. She used her speaking turn to count the many different guys she'd gone out with over the years, unimpressed by the lot of them. As their names and attributes were mentioned, the other three girls would make comments, mainly about what idiots they all were. There was a lot of genuflecting and ceiling pointing, particularly by Chrissy and June, and giving thanks to God as they exhaled grandly and stubbed out their cigarettes, that Karen didn't submit to lifelong companionship with any of these losers. Karen then concernedly warned me to be wary of the senior guys because freshman girls were easy targets for them. I wasn't sure I totally understood what she meant by targets but I took her warning and later that day passed it on to my dormmates with my eyes bright and my arms, newly inspired, moving wildly about with this bit of advice.

The four girls were heading to a local bar that night and invited me to come along. Not knowing them well enough to be in a position of assuming a ride, I asked if I could meet them there and bring along some other freshmen. They basically told me that this was fine as long as they weren't inexperienced goofballs (in other words, don't embarrass us). I was assured that no identification, fake or otherwise, would be needed. The bar was not known for checking such things. Also sensible footwear was recommended as the bar floor was old and syrupy and sticking to it while standing was an absolute inevitability.

That evening, I, along with five other freshmen girls, made our way out to to find Karen and her friends. The bar was a couple miles from campus, which surprised me, but we came upon it without any problem. A dark, modest place, the sheer loudness made up for what it lacked in size. It was packed with students. There was a retro style jukebox, with pulsing colorful tubes of pink and green light, terribly large for the space in which it was situated. The bar itself was a work of art with a surface comprised of copper pennies. Over the course of that evening I saw more than one wall eyed patron with his nose pressed against it trying to read their dates or perhaps just resting amidst their rusty glow.

The songs which the colossal and colorful jukebox spit out were all of the singalong variety and if you didn't sing, people would move away from you as though you had a social disease. We'd been there about twenty minutes and became inundated by senior guys (good warning, Karen) as we tucked into a small spot near the music. Duly prepared for this swarm of weirdness, I was polite and smiled at the guys who were crowding me but I kept cupping my ears saying "WHAT? I can't hear you!" and eventually they just drank their beers and stood among us. When Mony Mony, remade by Billy Idol, came blasting out of the speakers directly behind me I flinched and spastically spilled part of my drink on my hand and the floor. The seniors standing in our midst started hurtling and hollering the testosterone laden chants about getting laid while throwing their fists in the air and as we freshmen focused amongst each other, it became clearer as to what Karen's warning, thoughtfully reinforced with a pointed look every time she walked by us, was about. We huddled closer to protect our feet from being landed upon and our sneakers glutinously cemented floorward.

The other hot songs I remember from that night were Paradise by the Dashboard Light (which I knew by heart, sang while standing on a rickety wooden table, and was therefore ceremoniously lauded for), Sweet Caroline, We Are the Champions, and Brown Eyed Girl. I think we may have heard each of those titles a half dozen times that night. Even if you arrived not knowing the words, you at least knew the all the choruses by the time you left.

I wore my baggy, torn acid washed jeans, a white long sleeved tshirt with a surfer scene on it and an oversized Brooks Brothers men's oxford in purple and white stripes, unbuttoned. I also remember white slouchy socks and Keds that were bleached more than once after seeing their scuzzy surfaces in the daylight later the next day. No one dressed up to go out. We were strictly comfort driven back then.

Lucky for us, we all arrived back at the dorm arm in arm, completely unscathed after our first big night out. My new roommate's two friends were less fortunate. One of them was hooked like a fish by a fist pumping senior who ignored her the rest of the semester after sharing his bed with her. The second got in a ketchup fight with a girl from another college after one too many rum and Cokes. (The ketchup fight story is rather vivid in my mind because she came back to the room I shared with my roommate instead of her own, rolled herself in my white eyelet comforter without undressing and was snoring on the floor by the time I returned. Nice manners.) Both of these girls had already been on campus a month. Part of that orientation should have probably included how to successfully navigate the bar scene.

I went to 'The Penny' on only three other occasions that semester, setting foot in it for the very last time during November of freshman year. The walk back to campus seemed too long after standing and singing and, let's face it, drinking for hours. The drive back to campus was impossible for the same reason. I heard rumors about a few student DUIs that year, with police cruisers rightfully parked on the street between the bars and the schools. My big sister Karen and her friends remained friendly to me, and I ended up very briefly dating the other suitemate of Chrissy and June's beaus that October. He, just like they predicted, paid absolutely no attention to me.

Thinking back, the very tender beginning of college has the potential to set the tone for the rest of a person's scholastic endeavors. I am glad that I was exposed to these people right off the bat. In their own ways they helped me avoid a few potholes and decide what was right for me. When I hear about my friends' children, some of them freshman right now and having a difficult time, I want to tell them it'll all be okay, but will it? Do they have big sisters to tell them who to stay away from? Are they being glommed onto by the wrong kind of people? Are they uncomfortable saying no to things that they suspect aren't right for them? Is their group of new friends savvy enough to not let things get out of hand? Are they grown up enough to handle this stuff on their own? Do they have enough experience from high school to not be labelled inexperienced goofballs?

I think of Karen and hope she found something in life to light her fire. I think of Lissa who presented as one hundred percent sure of everything. I wonder if all the things she and her fiancé worked to achieve came to fruition with staying power. I think of Chrissy and June, who over the course of their remaining two years, fawned, cajoled and kowtowed to those two guys who never treated them like anything more than a pesky extra appendage. June did marry her boyfriend two weeks after graduation, or so I heard. I wonder if he even realized what she was planning. I pray that he grew to appreciate her. I also hope Chrissy found happiness being who she is without needing the occasional approval of a guy she ran laps around but who could hardly have cared less.

Ahhhh, life. My mind is full. I have lots more stories to share.

Someone recently asked me how I choose what to write about. Well, I thought of all of this "stuff" today because Lissa's fiancé, the schoolteacher and husband to be, was a relative of actor Kirk Douglas who passed away last week at the age of 103. Small world.

Hey! Try SUBSCRIBING to this blog by entering your email above, just under the mushroom tumbler graphic. Let me know if you are successful by graciously sharing a comment. Thanks!

#1980s #monymony #paradisebythedashboardlight #wearethechampions #browneyedgirl #BillyIdol #barculture #copperpennypub #keds #mushroomtumbler

Reader Help - Subscriptions and Translation

Dear Readers, Thank you for coming here and reading what I am writing.

I have added a subscribe via email feature to the blog. It's under the mushroom tumbler graphic. I apologize for the antiquity of having an email subscription but that is what Google offers me as a blogger on their platform.

Also, there is a Google translation button at the bottom now since I seem to have an international community building.

If you try these functions and they do not work, please contact me by commenting.

You are valuable to me. I know your time is valuable to you.
Thank you for spending some of it here.

St. Elmo's Fire and the Scuba Suit

The human mind likes to compare, contrast, and compartmentalize.

In particular, the teenaged mind, with its immature prefrontal cortex constantly looks for help from others for the purpose of problem solving. Those "others" are like trusted independent consultants of life, with specialties in decision making. The teenaged mind is just trying to figure out where he or she would best be served traveling down the road to adulthood.

Some teens I knew were remarkably one track minded, solid and level headed. Others I knew made horrible decisions. Several wore one personality until a new independent consultant of life (a friend, teacher, literary hero or, perhaps, relative) made enough of an impression for that teen to warp and change to another personality, seemingly more suitable for that time being. Facades were normal and posers were everywhere. No one seemed to disparage the posers, though, as they just seemed a regular and routine part of our adolescent realm. In fact, I sort of dug the shape-shifters because they were acting out different parts of who they (maybe?) were, or hoped to be, without fear and without shyness.

Some teenagers got help from their parents and siblings in their quests to find themselves. Some teenagers were born knowing where their future, usually rock solid and legacied, would lead...you know, Dad went to Cornell so I will too, etc. I was not one of those teens.

I didn't want to bother my parents since they were engrossed in figuring out their own shit in the middle of their divorce. I have no siblings. My friends were not the kind of friends who discussed heavy "Who am I?" types of subjects. We were about good times and boys; we were about makeup, and sleepovers and scary movies and pizza and MTV. So I, probably like a lot of other teens in the 80s, looked to popular movies to help me potentially clarify a lot of things that were bothering me about my life and where it was heading.

I found that with the brat pack movies, it was quite easy to identify with at least one character per film. I paid attention to the lessons that John Hughes and other teen movie directors were trying to convey. Perhaps too seriously, I started taking notes about whom I was most like and subsequently what type of future I was looking at.

In Sixteen Candles, I related a little to Randy. Randy was Molly Ringwald's sidekick. She had some funny one liners that I tossed about, like, "I'd shit twice and die". Not terribly deep, she was cute, loyal, fun and readily helped her friend when the geeks were paying to see underwear displayed in the boys room. In Pretty in Pink I felt most like Iona. She owned her own record store and dressed in crazy fashions purely for sport. In one hilarious scene she pegs a youthful shoplifter with a single shot from her staple gun and at another moment she lovingly bequeaths Andie her funky 1966 prom dress while reminiscing to the Association song "Cherish".

The one flick I had a very hard time figuring out was St. Elmo's Fire.

I had a hard time because I saw some of myself in Jules but what I really wanted was to be Wendy.

Jules was a loud, colorful, hard partying, reckless spending, insanely troubled character completely at odds with her stepmother; whereas Wendy was sweet, with a sensible hair cut, an unflappable blue-blooded family, a big heart, and a gorgeous colonial estate. She was employed in a helping profession and had everyone's best interests at heart, all the while nursing a mostly unrequited crush on Billy, the bad boy of the film. She spoke her mind, albeit in a very poised way, and kept trying to better herself without anyone's help. She rode in the back of the jeep but was an unmistakably integral part of the crowd.

My personal clothing at the time of the movie's release was an almost identical copy of what Jules donned throughout the film. She had long brown crimped hair atop a hot pink quilted motorcycle jacket. In scene after scene she wore heels and oversized blazers with ripped leggings. I'm pretty sure she wore the same color lipstick as me and my friends. I decided, after watching the movie twice and being completely freaked out by the scenes where Demi Moore, as Jules, attempts to either score cocaine or freeze herself to death in her over-budgeted, under-afforded, with Billy Idol painted on the wall apartment, to start dressing more like Wendy, thinking that maybe a deliberate change in wardrobe was a solid first step to a better future.

Thumbing through some catalogs, I ordered what I thought looked like the same exact pink sweater Mare Winningham (as Wendy) wore throughout the film; a puffy sleeved angora confection that smacked of good breeding and sensitivity and would most certainly require regular dry cleaning. I had some money from working after school, so I also bought a knee length, non body-conscious white shaker knit sweater dress; a long sleeved cream colored puff shouldered lace blouse; fake pearl strands in white and light pink that I could knot and fiddle with in a plutocratic way; two black velvet headbands, one thin and one thick; an expensive mauve cardigan embroidered with cabbage roses; and flat shoes in colors to accentuate my new and proper style of dress. My Moo Moo bought me a beautiful black and white herringbone tweed ankle length winter coat for my birthday with a soft ebony velvet collar. It had a gold chain tucked under the tag with which to hang it. It was cultured, pretty, and dignified...like me!

I suppose the wardrobe worked, for a while. I changed my preferred nail polish from a Woolworth bargain bin color that was mostly gray but somewhat glittery to a more costly pearled mulberry shade. I took my studies very seriously. I donned ecru lace tights at all times even when wearing jeans (and posh pink suede flats). I applied to and was accepted at a Catholic college. I tossed away my drink coaster sized neon hoop earrings and put in dainty sterling silver apples.

Less partying led to hanging out with a new boyfriend, and his dear mother Marylou, who tried teaching me practical lessons for being a good wife despite the fact that I was only 16. The new beau went to a neighboring school district and had no idea that a month ago I had been crawling on my hands and knees at a shindig in the woods voluntarily searching for my friend's prized Zippo lighter. All he knew was that I was now all velvet and lace, engaged in familial grocery shopping and helping to scrub grease off the kitchen soffit after frying chicken with Marylou. It was an interesting time of transition.

I gained a little weight during this time, because I had gone from never really relaxing to a more sedentary style of life. There were movie rentals on the weekends, hearty stews, and what seemed like continual cookie baking. Marylou, who took me skirt shopping one afternoon, saw my figure and suggested that maybe it was time for a "nice foundation garment". Immediately my mind shot to "Scuba suit!" which is what bad boy Billy calls Wendy's girdle in St. Elmo's Fire. She had briefly worked in the lingerie apparel business so I suppose foundation garments were on Marylou's mind a bit more than the average person's but honestly, I wasn't sure whether to be thrilled (I AM Wendy!) or concerned (I am WENDY.).

A lot of questions came rushing in. Who am I now? I don't recognize my body. Where am I? I don't recognize all of this downtime and the activities in which I am engaging. What have I done? I surely don't recognize my hair (which I had professionally chopped, from below the shoulders wild child ringlets to a chin length style that I can only describe as a wet short curly mullet). I began watching myself from outside of my body. Constantly nervous, I was unmoored for the last 6 months of high school.

After a year and a half of trying hard to achieve a Wendy-esque persona, I set off for that Catholic college and the very first day, started becoming my true self again. I put up my Neil Young poster above my bed. I played my music so loud I got issued a warning. I flipped my head over and sprayed the underside of my hair for a good 60 seconds. I let out an audible sigh that had been quashed in the deepest parts of my insides for months.

During my first week I wore green hospital scrub bottoms, a Cherry Garcia Ben and Jerry's tie dye, shredded jeans and a camouflage jacket. I pulled out my Hind running tights and wore them every night after dinner, sprinting through the streets of Albany with whomever expressed an interest. The boyfriend, attending a college only a few miles down the road from me during that first month of school was befuddled. He asked, "Who are you?" and I happily admitted, "Well this is actually more of the real me." He was headed toward a career in politics and I was headed to a double major's worth of classes; to concerts and keggers and two part time jobs so that I didn't have to sit down, ever again. We ended our relationship, but not before he bought me a pair of fuzzy yellow ducky slippers for my 18th birthday. I took their obvious incongruousness as a sign that I was dead on in my decision to step away from my pretend world of Wendy.

People in my dormitory who had known me for less than 5 weeks bought me on the button birthday presents: the new Def Leppard CD; a pair of earrings in the shape of tribal masks; the strongest, smelliest hairspray available; and a beer pitcher stolen as a joke from a local bar.

I was more Jules than Wendy, and that didn't make me a bad person or a person whose future was at risk based on a movie and some strange similarities. I deliberately came to terms with myself, drumming up love and acceptance and suspending judgement. I also knew that even with drama in my life I would never end up freezing, waiting to be rescued like Demi Moore.

Regrettably, I went through a personal crisis of this type again about 5 years later when I was at another crossroads in life, both relationally and career wise. I literally resurrected the pink cardigan and went back to being Wendy for about 4 years (complete with a Stewie Newman type boyfriend) but then, as it happens, I couldn't play-act any longer and like a meteor crashing into the atmosphere, I became more like Jules again. Because Jules is fun loving and she is a risk taker and she dances and sings and drives with the top down and a bright red scarf blowing in the breeze. She's actually pretty vulnerable, too.

Fast forward 25 years later...I am very comfortable being myself, which I suppose is a healthy hybrid of both Jules and Wendy. I am still trying to do some rocking out and I am minorly, though appropriately, troubled whilst doing my best to helping the less fortunate. I go where my big heart tells me and I work to beautify my colonial estate. I also have a bad boy Billy. He does not play the saxophone but he spends what I feel is an inordinate amount of time on the roof.

And, I do not wear a scuba suit, though I probably totally should.

#1980s #stelmosfire #saintelmo #demimoore #marewinningham #sixteencandles #prettyinpink #mushroomtumbler

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