Growing up, we all called him Charles. It was what his parents - Mr. and Mrs. John C. Walton - wanted to call him. This Charlie thing got going only after he'd figured out what he wanted to call himself.
He was a year behind me in age, but he always seemed to be getting into things before I knew what was going on. When I was six, and he was only five, my mother took me to visit him once in East Nashville where he lived, at the corner of Cahal and Porter road in a nice house with a big yard, bounded on two sides by a white wood fence. When I arrived, Charles came riding out to greet me on a two-wheel bike. The last time I had been there we had both been riding tricycles. The word for what I felt was chagrin - I didn't know that word back then, but I was certain that I wanted to learn how to ride a two-wheeler as soon as possible. And so I did, but the situation was clear: Charles was in the vanguard of things, and I was playing catch-up.
Charles knew things I didn't know, like what a side of beef looks like on a hook. He was able to get up close and personal with stuff like that, from hanging out at his father's small grocery store in Nashville. My father was in the newspaper circulation business. From him, I learned how to fold a newspaper and, in addition, the valuable fact that you'll get more money from your customers at Christmas if you give the calendars away, instead of selling them for a quarter. It was useful information, but nothing to compare with a side of beef.
Charles also knew more about birds than I did. I knew about Robins and Mockingbirds, but Charles was, in addition, conversant about Scarlet Tanagers, Red-Headed Woodpeckers and Yellow-Bellied Sap Suckers. Not to mention Chickadees. I found out that he had a big bird book that had color pictures of all the birds with a paragraph describing each one. One rainy afternoon, when I was at Charles' house, we decided to type out, on typing paper, all the paragraphs in the book, using a Royal typewriter that was there. When his mother asked us what the purpose was of doing that, we were stumped. We said we just wanted to play with the typewriter. She took that for purpose enough, and let us do it.
Looking back, that day we spent inside, playing with the typewriter, seems to have had a formative effect on us, as we each made our living with the use of typewriters. I found out from his mother, years later, that Charles had become a professional writer. On a visit to Nashville, from the west coast where I was living at the time, I asked Aunt Virginia what Charles was doing. She smiled and said, "He's a Word Monger - that's what he calls his writing business!"
It was chagrin time for me again - I was the one who was supposed to grow up to be a writer. But I decided, somewhere along the line, that there must be easier ways of making a living. Writing, for me, has been a hobby. Charles made a good living at it, writing and creating reports and presentations for big corporations like the Coca-Cola company. And, over the years, he wrote books about his life and religious faith that became (and remain) best sellers - right now, on Amazon.com, Charles' book, When There Are No Words, ranks #12,315 among all published books in print, and #26 in his book's specific category.
Before his mother told me about it, I had no inkling of this side of Charles. I remember him, when we were still at Stokes Elementary, as being all into sports. Every time I came to see him at 1739 Hillmont Drive (where he lived then, within walking distance of all the schools he would attend - Stokes, Hillsboro and David Lipscomb), he was shooting hoops in a basket hung over his garage. He dribbled incessantly. I would go inside and read back issues of Life and Colliers, or look at Aunt Virginia's vast stamp collection. I was an inside person.
What Charles was up to became apparent when we got to Hillsboro. Before I knew what was going on, he was playing varsity basketball as a junior. His years of practice paid off.
After his school days, Charles monged words for his daily bread and traveled the world with his wife, Kay, and boys, Tim, Don and Rick. Eventually, there wasn't anywhere else to go. Charles died early this year after a brief illness.
He's still ahead of me.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Billy
Tell the folks back home
This is the Promised Land calling
One summer day, when he was still a toddler in diapers, Billy took off from our duplex on Granny White Pike, just down the road from Hutcheson's Pharmacy, and got as far as Stokes Lane and Belmont Boulevard before we found him. If anybody in our house had believed in signs and portents back then, we might have thought that Billy would go far.
We would have been right. When he was already grown with a family and a good job, Billy confounded everybody by throwing it all away for a lottery ticket on showbiz. I think the whole Elvis thing had gotten to him - the look, the easy smile, the slightly snarled upper lip. Billy could do that. So he went to California in search of fame and fortune.
He found a little - parts in afternoon soaps and commercials for Church's Fried Chicken and Snapple. He played a speaking role in the movie that was made about Jackie Robinson's life. Just enough to keep him hanging in. What made it survivable is that he found a life partner, in Katie.
Billy was also lucky. Once, while taking a nap in a muddy Korean field, he was run over by a tank. The mud was so thick that the tank just pushed him down in it. On another occasion, while we were all visiting in Nashville, Billy borrowed my car one evening. Hours later, the hospital called to say that they had Billy - he had been in a wreck. Momma hopped in her car and drove to the hospital. She said later that she passed the car on the way - it was wrapped around a telephone post. She said she knew he was dead, but he wasn't - he escaped with cuts and contusions and a bruised backbone.
Shortly before Christmas last, Billy's luck ran out. Or just kicked in, depending on your belief.
This is the Promised Land calling
One summer day, when he was still a toddler in diapers, Billy took off from our duplex on Granny White Pike, just down the road from Hutcheson's Pharmacy, and got as far as Stokes Lane and Belmont Boulevard before we found him. If anybody in our house had believed in signs and portents back then, we might have thought that Billy would go far.
We would have been right. When he was already grown with a family and a good job, Billy confounded everybody by throwing it all away for a lottery ticket on showbiz. I think the whole Elvis thing had gotten to him - the look, the easy smile, the slightly snarled upper lip. Billy could do that. So he went to California in search of fame and fortune.
He found a little - parts in afternoon soaps and commercials for Church's Fried Chicken and Snapple. He played a speaking role in the movie that was made about Jackie Robinson's life. Just enough to keep him hanging in. What made it survivable is that he found a life partner, in Katie.
Billy was also lucky. Once, while taking a nap in a muddy Korean field, he was run over by a tank. The mud was so thick that the tank just pushed him down in it. On another occasion, while we were all visiting in Nashville, Billy borrowed my car one evening. Hours later, the hospital called to say that they had Billy - he had been in a wreck. Momma hopped in her car and drove to the hospital. She said later that she passed the car on the way - it was wrapped around a telephone post. She said she knew he was dead, but he wasn't - he escaped with cuts and contusions and a bruised backbone.
Shortly before Christmas last, Billy's luck ran out. Or just kicked in, depending on your belief.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Magic Moment
Through no fault but my own, I became known, at work, for creating certain kinds of mainframe computer software systems. My programs surprised, and pleased people, and made them think about their work in a whole different way. This was back when not so many people were doing that.
Anyway, there was this guy, who was in the group I was in, but a couple of levels up from me, an associate director of something, but more sophisticated and refined than we usually got assigned to us, an Italian, but you wouldn't know it, just hearing him talk, all uptown New York, very relaxed, competent, and so friendly, in a real and genuine way, that you knew he had to be a snake underneath.
I liked the guy. At happy hour, he would always come up and kiss me on my forehead. I don't remember him doing that to any of the other guys. Or girls, for that matter. It just seemed to be a quiet gesture of friendliness between two confident men. I was impressed with him for that. It was the eighties.
Once, a group of us were at somebody's house and everybody was talking, and somebody started talking about magicians, so I told about how, when I was a kid, I liked to amaze people, doing magic.
This guy I'm talking about said, "You're still doing it."
Nobody heard him. Except me.
I never found the snake in that guy.
Anyway, there was this guy, who was in the group I was in, but a couple of levels up from me, an associate director of something, but more sophisticated and refined than we usually got assigned to us, an Italian, but you wouldn't know it, just hearing him talk, all uptown New York, very relaxed, competent, and so friendly, in a real and genuine way, that you knew he had to be a snake underneath.
I liked the guy. At happy hour, he would always come up and kiss me on my forehead. I don't remember him doing that to any of the other guys. Or girls, for that matter. It just seemed to be a quiet gesture of friendliness between two confident men. I was impressed with him for that. It was the eighties.
Once, a group of us were at somebody's house and everybody was talking, and somebody started talking about magicians, so I told about how, when I was a kid, I liked to amaze people, doing magic.
This guy I'm talking about said, "You're still doing it."
Nobody heard him. Except me.
I never found the snake in that guy.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Do You Believe in Magic?
After the kids were gone and we had reclaimed the house, I started thinking about the time when I was Andrew's age and all I thought about was doing magic tricks and putting on shows.
I was serious about it - I wanted to be a professional magician.
I got catalogs from all the big magic stores - like Douglas Magicland in Dallas, and Abbott's Magic Company in Colon, Michigan. These catalogs were full of pictures of silver rings and brass tubes and multi-colored foulards, and smoke, and mirrors, and common everyday objects like milk pitchers and golf balls that could stupefy the mind. And everything was for sale!
All my money, from birthdays, Christmas and occasional petty theft, went to these places. And I got all this great stuff back that looked just the way it did in the catalogs. It was a thrill just getting it in the mail. To me, it was like, magic.
But that wasn't why I wanted it so bad. What made it worth the money was finding out how the tricks worked. I was amazed at how sneaky the guys were who thought all that stuff up. But finding out was like joining a club. Putting on magic acts was secondary.
I got the magic bug early in life. When I was about five, whenever my father drew babysitting duty, he would take me downtown to the financial district, where all the pawnshops were. He knew everybody down there. We would visit and he'd show off his kid. When we got to the end of the street, he would look back and say, "They're all bums."
One of the places we went in, you had to walk down some steps to get to the entrance. It was called The Fun Shop, where jokes, novelties and magic tricks were on display and for sale. If you needed a whoopee cushion or a joy buzzer in those days, this was your place.
One time, the guy who worked there laid a penny out on the counter, right in front of me, and then brought out a small, square block of wood, that had green felt on the bottom and was painted red on the top. While my father and I looked on, he passed the little block over the penny, and the penny changed into a dime. Right in front of me.
I was astounded. I knew the guy did something, but I didn't know what it was. I begged my father to buy me that trick, just so I could find out how it worked. And so he did. He wanted to know how it worked, too.
From that humble beginning, I rose to a point where I was fourteen and known as a high roller in the best magic shops in the country.
Later on, I teamed up with Larry Copeland and we started putting on shows at school and other places. Once, we got a letter from the principal of Pearl High School, inviting us to do our act at their annual Talent Show. We found out that their Talent Show was a big deal in town and they didn't ask just anybody to show up. So we went.
That night, there were a couple of singing and dancing acts before us, and we saw that the audience wasn't just sitting around - they were letting everybody know whether they liked them or not. We started getting nervous.
When we came out, I did several tricks to warm up the crowd, but just got little murmurs back. Copeland did a few jokes and got some laughs, and the general mood seemed to pick up a bit. Then I pulled out a biggie from my bag - three large silk scarves, colored red, green and yellow, respectively, that I waved around until they somehow got transmogrified into one great big scarf with a sunburst of all the colors in it. That got a big response - everybody started yelling at me and themselves and everybody else, at the same time. It took a while before they settled down.
By and by, I was ready for the big closer, the Box of DUZ trick. The trick that never failed to start a riot. I was terrified. I looked over at Copeland. He whispered back, "You gotta do it, man."
The trick involved three white silk scarves that were all dirty with big splotches on them. And a cardboard box, the kind you might get popcorn in, but this one had "DUZ Soap" printed on the outside. The deal was, I was going to clean the scarves to their original pristine whiteness by putting them in the DUZ box and using it for a washing machine.
So, with a lot of snappy patter, I stuffed the dirty laundry into the DUZ box, closed the top and starting shaking it up and down. This didn't seem to accomplish much, so Copeland brought me a pitcher of milk and I poured the milk into the DUZ box. This got a little rise out of the crowd. I resumed shaking the box up and down and, while doing that, I slowly turned the DUZ box upside down. The "DUZ" label was now showing upside down, but only a couple of people seemed to see anything odd in that. When they started calling out about it, I pretended not to understand them.
Instead, with a flourish, I opened up the other end of the box and pulled out three sparkling white silks, entirely free of splotches. I held the silks up in one hand and the box in the other and took my bow.
But, by then, word was getting around about the box being upside down and there commenced a general row and eruption - they wanted me to open up the box. Several offered to come down and open it for me, if I didn't feel up to it. Copeland didn't make things any better. He started scratching his head and pointing at the box. Which, of course, he was supposed to do.
Eventually, I tore the box into little pieces, scattering it over the crowd, and everybody went crazy. We took a quick bow, grabbed our stuff and got offstage as fast as we could.
As it turned out, we won the Talent Show and got our names in the paper.
I decided I was on my way to becoming a professional magician. I told my father about it. He said, "Don't be a chump - go to college, become an engineer and make five thousand a year."
But I kept talking about it. One of the things I went on about was the annual magicians convention, which was held in Michigan. I wanted to go and hobnob with my brother wizards, but I knew there was no chance that my father would go for that.
Which shows what I knew about my father. He said, "Let's go."
So we drove to Michigan, the only time I remember ever going anywhere with just my father. The convention was held in this big theater in Sturgis. I got to see all the big magicians, on and off stage. My father sat out in the lobby area and watched all the sharpsters, some of whom were famous, doing their fancy card tricks. He seemed to be having a good time.
I caught up with him and asked him what he thought about the sleight-of-hand artists. He said, "They're all bums."
I was serious about it - I wanted to be a professional magician.
I got catalogs from all the big magic stores - like Douglas Magicland in Dallas, and Abbott's Magic Company in Colon, Michigan. These catalogs were full of pictures of silver rings and brass tubes and multi-colored foulards, and smoke, and mirrors, and common everyday objects like milk pitchers and golf balls that could stupefy the mind. And everything was for sale!
All my money, from birthdays, Christmas and occasional petty theft, went to these places. And I got all this great stuff back that looked just the way it did in the catalogs. It was a thrill just getting it in the mail. To me, it was like, magic.
But that wasn't why I wanted it so bad. What made it worth the money was finding out how the tricks worked. I was amazed at how sneaky the guys were who thought all that stuff up. But finding out was like joining a club. Putting on magic acts was secondary.
I got the magic bug early in life. When I was about five, whenever my father drew babysitting duty, he would take me downtown to the financial district, where all the pawnshops were. He knew everybody down there. We would visit and he'd show off his kid. When we got to the end of the street, he would look back and say, "They're all bums."
One of the places we went in, you had to walk down some steps to get to the entrance. It was called The Fun Shop, where jokes, novelties and magic tricks were on display and for sale. If you needed a whoopee cushion or a joy buzzer in those days, this was your place.
One time, the guy who worked there laid a penny out on the counter, right in front of me, and then brought out a small, square block of wood, that had green felt on the bottom and was painted red on the top. While my father and I looked on, he passed the little block over the penny, and the penny changed into a dime. Right in front of me.
I was astounded. I knew the guy did something, but I didn't know what it was. I begged my father to buy me that trick, just so I could find out how it worked. And so he did. He wanted to know how it worked, too.
From that humble beginning, I rose to a point where I was fourteen and known as a high roller in the best magic shops in the country.
Later on, I teamed up with Larry Copeland and we started putting on shows at school and other places. Once, we got a letter from the principal of Pearl High School, inviting us to do our act at their annual Talent Show. We found out that their Talent Show was a big deal in town and they didn't ask just anybody to show up. So we went.
That night, there were a couple of singing and dancing acts before us, and we saw that the audience wasn't just sitting around - they were letting everybody know whether they liked them or not. We started getting nervous.
When we came out, I did several tricks to warm up the crowd, but just got little murmurs back. Copeland did a few jokes and got some laughs, and the general mood seemed to pick up a bit. Then I pulled out a biggie from my bag - three large silk scarves, colored red, green and yellow, respectively, that I waved around until they somehow got transmogrified into one great big scarf with a sunburst of all the colors in it. That got a big response - everybody started yelling at me and themselves and everybody else, at the same time. It took a while before they settled down.
By and by, I was ready for the big closer, the Box of DUZ trick. The trick that never failed to start a riot. I was terrified. I looked over at Copeland. He whispered back, "You gotta do it, man."
The trick involved three white silk scarves that were all dirty with big splotches on them. And a cardboard box, the kind you might get popcorn in, but this one had "DUZ Soap" printed on the outside. The deal was, I was going to clean the scarves to their original pristine whiteness by putting them in the DUZ box and using it for a washing machine.
So, with a lot of snappy patter, I stuffed the dirty laundry into the DUZ box, closed the top and starting shaking it up and down. This didn't seem to accomplish much, so Copeland brought me a pitcher of milk and I poured the milk into the DUZ box. This got a little rise out of the crowd. I resumed shaking the box up and down and, while doing that, I slowly turned the DUZ box upside down. The "DUZ" label was now showing upside down, but only a couple of people seemed to see anything odd in that. When they started calling out about it, I pretended not to understand them.
Instead, with a flourish, I opened up the other end of the box and pulled out three sparkling white silks, entirely free of splotches. I held the silks up in one hand and the box in the other and took my bow.
But, by then, word was getting around about the box being upside down and there commenced a general row and eruption - they wanted me to open up the box. Several offered to come down and open it for me, if I didn't feel up to it. Copeland didn't make things any better. He started scratching his head and pointing at the box. Which, of course, he was supposed to do.
Eventually, I tore the box into little pieces, scattering it over the crowd, and everybody went crazy. We took a quick bow, grabbed our stuff and got offstage as fast as we could.
As it turned out, we won the Talent Show and got our names in the paper.
I decided I was on my way to becoming a professional magician. I told my father about it. He said, "Don't be a chump - go to college, become an engineer and make five thousand a year."
But I kept talking about it. One of the things I went on about was the annual magicians convention, which was held in Michigan. I wanted to go and hobnob with my brother wizards, but I knew there was no chance that my father would go for that.
Which shows what I knew about my father. He said, "Let's go."
So we drove to Michigan, the only time I remember ever going anywhere with just my father. The convention was held in this big theater in Sturgis. I got to see all the big magicians, on and off stage. My father sat out in the lobby area and watched all the sharpsters, some of whom were famous, doing their fancy card tricks. He seemed to be having a good time.
I caught up with him and asked him what he thought about the sleight-of-hand artists. He said, "They're all bums."
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Magical Mystery Tour
Johnny Wilson has shamed me into writing something. I had run out of inspiration. But the prospect of having a reader has energized me to the point of putting pen to paper, as they used to say.
In casting around for a subject, my thoughts returned to last weekend when we had Andrew and Molly over for dinner, just themselves, while William and his parents were off following his many pursuits (now that he's a high school lad) and Andrew brought his magician's kit from last Christmas and he put on a magic act for us.
His apparatus were top-notch and his snappy patter showed that he had read the Magician's Handbook, that came with the kit, through and through. He had a magic wand that figured in several effects. And at one point, he pulled a toy rabbit out of a real-looking top hat that, before, had nothing in it.
I asked him if he could pull a hat out of a rabbit. He said he didn't have that trick yet.
Molly, over on the couch, followed our conversation without interest. She'd heard it all before. . . .
In casting around for a subject, my thoughts returned to last weekend when we had Andrew and Molly over for dinner, just themselves, while William and his parents were off following his many pursuits (now that he's a high school lad) and Andrew brought his magician's kit from last Christmas and he put on a magic act for us.
His apparatus were top-notch and his snappy patter showed that he had read the Magician's Handbook, that came with the kit, through and through. He had a magic wand that figured in several effects. And at one point, he pulled a toy rabbit out of a real-looking top hat that, before, had nothing in it.
I asked him if he could pull a hat out of a rabbit. He said he didn't have that trick yet.
Molly, over on the couch, followed our conversation without interest. She'd heard it all before. . . .
Monday, May 5, 2008
Looking for Love at the B&W
It's becoming widely known that Peggy Shackleford has a blog - http://www.pegshack.blogspot.com/ - which would be of interest to anyone who has ever known her.
One of her recent posts was devoted to memories of games and puzzles, like "Rook" and "Authors", and she told about being invited to join a bridge club. That shook loose a memory of mine when I was thirteen and learned something about girls.
Steve Scoggin's mother, Dot Scoggins, was a friend of my mother and a serious bridge player. One summer, she got Steve and me jobs at a big bridge tournament that was being held at the Maxwell House Hotel over a weekend.
She tried to impress Steve and me by saying that Goren and Jacoby would be there. We were not impressed. But we each got thirty dollars for being gophers at the event.
Mostly, we just had to hang out in a big room where a hundred and ten tables of bridge were going on. And, every now and then, we had to go get somebody a co-cola. We had to work Saturday and Sunday, so we had an overnight room in the hotel . And we had a lot of time to ourselves.
In that situation, we did what any two thirteen-year-old boys would have done. We made paper airplanes and flew them off the mezzanine to the lobby below. And we dropped water bombs out the seventh-story window of our room. Before the weekend was out, the Hotel Manager knew our names.
Saturday night, Steve and I were on our own for dinner, so we went to the B&W cafeteria, down the street from where we were staying. For some reason, the waiters sat us at a table with two cute girls about our same age. The four of us sat at the table and ate our food, and nobody said a word. The two girls gave each other little looks. I don't know if Steve was giving me looks because I was looking at my fried haddock.
When we left, the girls came out behind us. It was dark outside and a little nippy. Steve and I turned one way and the girls turned the other. At that point, one of the girls looked over her shoulder and gave a long, low whistle.
Steve and I went into emergency conference. Steve was beside himself. He said, "Let's go!" I was terrified. I couldn't make my feet move. I told him to go on without me. He didn't go.
I haven't seen Steve Scoggins in fifty years. My guess is, he's still mad at me.
One of her recent posts was devoted to memories of games and puzzles, like "Rook" and "Authors", and she told about being invited to join a bridge club. That shook loose a memory of mine when I was thirteen and learned something about girls.
Steve Scoggin's mother, Dot Scoggins, was a friend of my mother and a serious bridge player. One summer, she got Steve and me jobs at a big bridge tournament that was being held at the Maxwell House Hotel over a weekend.
She tried to impress Steve and me by saying that Goren and Jacoby would be there. We were not impressed. But we each got thirty dollars for being gophers at the event.
Mostly, we just had to hang out in a big room where a hundred and ten tables of bridge were going on. And, every now and then, we had to go get somebody a co-cola. We had to work Saturday and Sunday, so we had an overnight room in the hotel . And we had a lot of time to ourselves.
In that situation, we did what any two thirteen-year-old boys would have done. We made paper airplanes and flew them off the mezzanine to the lobby below. And we dropped water bombs out the seventh-story window of our room. Before the weekend was out, the Hotel Manager knew our names.
Saturday night, Steve and I were on our own for dinner, so we went to the B&W cafeteria, down the street from where we were staying. For some reason, the waiters sat us at a table with two cute girls about our same age. The four of us sat at the table and ate our food, and nobody said a word. The two girls gave each other little looks. I don't know if Steve was giving me looks because I was looking at my fried haddock.
When we left, the girls came out behind us. It was dark outside and a little nippy. Steve and I turned one way and the girls turned the other. At that point, one of the girls looked over her shoulder and gave a long, low whistle.
Steve and I went into emergency conference. Steve was beside himself. He said, "Let's go!" I was terrified. I couldn't make my feet move. I told him to go on without me. He didn't go.
I haven't seen Steve Scoggins in fifty years. My guess is, he's still mad at me.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
The Disappeared House on the Gone Hill
During the first half of the last century, there was a fine, two-story brick house on Compton Avenue in Nashville. Compton was a hill in those days and the house sat right at the crest of it. I can easily imagine that hill, covered with snow in the wintertime for the benefit of sledders who would come from all around the area.
My mother, Ethel Young, was born in that house and lived there with her older sisters, Catherine and Virginia. Actually, I'm told that all three were birthed in Covington, Tennessee, out of a family tradition, and then brought home to the house on Compton. Dr. T. Hugh Young was paterfamilias to these children, with his wife, and their mother, Hazel, who had been a Crippen, until her marriage to Dr. Young. Despite this fact, Hazel's mother was a Gillespie, owing to a second marriage, following the death of Mr. Crippen. Dr. Young, it can be said without fear of contradiction, was descended from a long line of Youngs. His mother came from a long line of Dennisons. They all lived together in the house on Compton Avenue, including Aunt Nanny Penuel, following the death of Mr. Penuel.
Even though I never met her, Grandma Gillespie was the one I remember most clearly, because my mother talked more about her to me. In photographs, she was regal and elegant. And she painted - we had in our house, as I was growing up, a large oil painting of a sylvan landscape that always looked good to me. Grandma Gillespie seemed to be my mother's favorite.
Dr. Young was bald, but distinguished-looking. He graduated from the Vanderbilt Medical School and made a career of doing insurance medicals for the Life and Casualty Co. In pictures, he seems formal and stern in an old-line, patrician way, but he could smile broadly when the situation warranted it, as when he donned his Fez and marched in the Shriner's Parade. I have to hand it to him - you couldn't pay me to don a Fez.
Life in the Compton house, during my mother's childhood, was one of easy privilege, as it was practiced in those days. All the meals for the large family were prepared by the family cook, Sadie, who ruled the kitchen with the authority of an absolute despot. Even Dr. Young, himself, might be threatened with an iron skillet if he wandered into the kitchen, before dinner, in search of a drumstick.
Aunt Virginia says that Ethel loved animals as a girl and she was always befriending creatures and bringing them home. There's a story of her dragging a stray pony home, once. Mama must have been something of a tomboy. On weekends, she liked going with her father, searching for Indian relics in the countryside of Tennessee and Kentucky. Dr. Young was a noted collector of Indian relics, which didn't surprise me because I always thought he looked like an Indian.
Mama was a young girl during the twenties, which is probably lucky in that it saved her from flapperdom. She entered her teens in the early thirties, when things had calmed down a lot. Still, I have a memory of hearing that she learned to drive a car at age twelve and started smoking soon after that. In those days, that was living with reckless abandon.
One thing that I didn't appreciate until I was grown is how stunningly beautiful she was, but still with the fresh-faced look of a girl who looked good in her time, or in ours.
In the late thirties, a couple of things happened that separated her life up to that time from what it would become.
In December, 1937, she married Rinkey Blumen. One month later, her mother died.
Parents don't tell their children anything of importance about themselves. Mama never spoke of her mother to me, and I have no idea how she ever became involved with Rinkey Blumen.
I was curious enough, however, to ask her about it a few years ago. She said he was the only boy she knew who had a car.
They went on to have five children, all boys. I was the first.
I remember my early years as idyllic. I got my mother's undivided attention and a gold star in my book every time I did something good. And she introduced me to the family rituals of the time: on Sunday afternoons, if it was nice, she would take me to visit Aunt Nanny Penuel. Every Easter, Nanny always colored a dozen eggs and hid them around the house for me to find. Once, we made a visit in the summer, and when we left, I asked Mama about the strange smell in the house. Mama laughed. she said Nanny had forgotten where she hid a few of those Easter eggs.
Then, before I started school, David and Billy showed up. I had to adjust my claim on mama's attention.
She and Daddy seemed to get along really well in the early years, but over time, perceived slights accumulated on both sides to a point where they enjoyed nothing more than a loud argument, with yelling, each one saying unkind things about the other. Actually, I'm not sure they enjoyed it, but they did it a lot.
Mama could give as good as she got. In fact, an impartial observer might say that Daddy was overmatched. She had a fine temper and a sharp wit that came into play when she was angry. She was particularly sensitive to any feeling that she was getting the short end of the stick.
When she let out with these zingers, she wasn't trying to be funny, but sometimes it was hard to keep from laughing, because they were funny. A misplaced sense of propriety prevents me from giving any examples.
I remember, one time, my father came home with a solution to a problem that had vexed the family for some time - David and I were both carrying paper routes and we both needed cars, but there weren't enough to go around. We had three cars, so my father said that he would drive one, I would drive one, and David would have the third.
Mama fixed him with one eye and said, "What am I supposed to do?"
Clearly, Daddy's plan had a flaw. Mama offered a compromise.
She said, "That's fine. I'll just drive you to work every morning and pick you up every evening."
We became a four car family.
But I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I think Mama really enjoyed being the mother of three boys. She threw herself into cub scouting with gusto and was a perennial Den Mother. Rick Drewry remembers being in one of those dens. I think she got to work out all her tomboyish aspirations on the Scouting Movement.
She did it for so long that one year, to our astonishment, she was given The Long Rifle award, an honor that is usually bestowed on the scout of the year. She was the only Den Mother who had ever been recognized in that way. After that, she got more respect from the kids in the neighborhood - word went around that she had a rifle.
The year before I started Hillsboro, Mama's life took another sharp turn: she got pregnant, again. I guess the thought of dealing with four children into her forties sent her into a tailspin, because, for the next nine months, she sat on the couch and wouldn't talk to anybody. I didn't realize what was going on, but it had a big effect on me. I clammed up, too. Something went into myself and never came out again. Even when I was grown, and had figured out what happened, I was not able to act naturally around her or any of my brothers. What ever it was that had taken cover inside me couldn't understand why his Mama stopped talking to him.
She came out of her mood when she saw her new son. The advent of Rick, and later, Joel, chased her blues away and she threw herself into the business of managing five boys to adulthood. In the process, she must have made her peace with her life, the way we all have to do.
As she came out of this low period, she began a life-long feud with her doctors. When she had been depressed, they loaded her up with pills. When the depression lifted, the doctors thought she should keep taking the pills. She went along with their advice for a while, but one day she flushed all her pills down the toilet and refused to take any more. She said she never felt better in her life.
During this time, we would visit the house on Compton Avenue on rare occasions, usually at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I believe my cousins, Charlie and Doug, and cousin Catherine Ann, spent more time there than we did. Catherine Ann, in particular, learned cooking by the pinch from old Sadie.
My memories of Compton are few. I think Mama had a feud going on with her father, too - something about his taste in second wives. When his wife, Hazel, died, Dr. Young married a woman who had worked in his office. I don't know if she had been his nurse or his receptionist, but Margaret took pride in becoming the doyenne of Compton Avenue. At Christmas, she entertained us by playing a large, pedal harp that she kept in the front parlor. And no discouraging word was heard from anyone.
I remember one Thanksgiving, dinner was over and Dr. Young was having his cigar. No one had left the table. The conversation was light. I was still just a kid and didn't talk, myself.
Someone - probably Aunt Virginia - mentioned that I was a stamp collector. Aunt Virginia, herself, had a large collection of U.S. mint stamps and I had gotten interested from her. Anyway, Dr. Young asked me what kind of stamps I liked to collect and I said First Day Covers and Plate Number Blocks.
He smiled broadly and asked me if I had ever seen a Zeppelin First Day Cover. I said I'd never seen one, but I had heard about them - they were worth several hundred dollars each.
Dr. Young directed someone to fetch a box from an upstairs closet. It was set in front of him and he opened it with an air of formality and brought out 15 or 20 Zeppelin First Day covers. I was astonished. I looked over at Aunt Virginia and she appeared to be surprised, too.
The old gentleman seemed pleased with himself. He laid the Zeppelins aside and asked me what a Plate Number Block was. I said it was a block of four stamps, taken from the corner of a 50-stamp sheet that had the Plate Number of the sheet on it.
I think he knew what I was talking about, because he reached into his box again and brought out a stack of 50-stamp sheets, all U.S. Commemorative issues - the National Parks, the Army and Navy Series, and others, that had been issued back in the 1930's. I was familiar with the stamps, but I had never seen whole sheets of them before.
Dr. Young invited me to come over beside him for a closer look and he got me to explain where the Plate Numbers were located, sometimes at the top of the sheet and sometimes at the bottom.
He said, "Would you like to have some of these for your collection?" I said that I would. The next thing I knew, he was tearing the Plate Number corners out of all the sheets! Aunt Virginia was aghast. I knew she was thinking that a complete sheet was a whole lot better than a block, and he was destroying every sheet he had! Nobody said a word. I looked over at Mama and she looked very pleased. I don't remember how Margaret looked.
That might have been the last time I was in the Compton house.
The intervening years were full of activity. We lived on the corner of Stokes Lane and Stokesmont Road. Charlotte Kinnard lived in an interesting stone house down the street and Larry Copeland and John Wilson lived up at the top of Benham Avenue on Redoubt Number 1. Lucy Love lived on Hopkins, I think. The Womacks were across the street, Richard Cotten on the street behind them, and going down Stokes toward Belmont, Wally Wolf and Bunny Michel hung out. Not with each other, of course.
We had a big yard and, in summertime, kids would come from all over the neighborhood to play softball on our front lawn. Home Plate was right in front of the house, where all the windows were, and you got a home run if you hit it over Stokes Lane. Mama would serve lemonade between innings. I think some of the guys wished that she was their mother. They were the ones who came around even when I wasn't there.
But she was not without manias. One was houses. My father told me once that Mama made him build three houses and, each time, he got further in debt. Apparently, she wanted stuff that you couldn't just get out of a bin in the hardware store or the Sears Catalog. Harvey's didn't have it.
At 4317 Lealand Lane, we had glass bricks in our garage before glass bricks were cool. At that time, there were only two houses on that stretch of Lealand - ours and the house where the contractor, who had built both houses, lived. His name was Cartwright and he was the father of John and LaNeve Cartwright, whom we've heard tell about.
In the woods, behind our houses, rusting monkey cages from the old Glendale Zoo were being actively reclaimed by nature. At night, I heard strange, metal sounds.
The Stokes Lane house was very contemporary: in the living room, there was a smart-looking fireplace with no flue. The only time we ever started a fire in it was during the blizzard of '51. We were lucky we didn't get killed.
Stokes Lane had a rec room with a linoleum floor, laid out like a chessboard, which Mama had specifically designed and commissioned. It was her idea to make a set of wooden chessmen, each two feet tall, so Alex, L. D. and I could play big chess on the rec room floor. Everybody thought that was cool, but somehow the chessmen never got made.
In the dining room, there was a blond mahogany table that folded up into a perfect square, right under a light, that was recessed into the ceiling, and which cast a beam, through some special lens, in a perfectly square shape, illuminating the square, folded-up table to its exact proportions. I believe we were the only people in the neighborhood with one of those.
Another mania Mama had was for papier mache. If you knew my mother, you might argue that this was part of a more general mania she had for arts and crafts in any medium whatsoever, and you would be right. But I want to emphasize that she was a master of papier mache.
There were years when, any time you came into our living room, day or night, you would be confronted by a long table, covered with newspapers, with great vats of papier mache paste on either end. Rolls of chickenwire were stacked up in the corners. On the table, at any given time, there were several constructions in different stages of production. Paste was on everything.
She liked making animals by sculpting the bodies out of chickenwire and then covering them over with papier mache. Once, she made a big thing about four feet tall that stood on the floor. Everybody who saw it said it looked like a dang donkey. So, we started taking it to football games. It was such a hit that I suggested that she make some papier mache students, next. I was something of a wit, back then.
In those days, it seemed that we lived in a continual maelstrom. Mama's job was to keep it going. Eventually, the first three of us brothers grew up and scattered. Rick and Joel stayed behind and got caught in the sixties. Rick made it through somehow, but Joel didn't.
Actually, Daddy was the first to go. They said that he was walking up a long hill to a church for somebody else's funeral, and collapsed just before he got to the door. There's something in that image that I just can't shake.
Mama said that she would miss him, but that was about all. She didn't say much about Joel, either, in my hearing. As with her mother, she took all that inside her and left it there. I can understand that.
For the next 30 years, after we kids had all moved on, Mama lived alone. She complained about loneliness, but I think she enjoyed the peace and quiet.
She moved to a smaller house not far from Woodmont and Estes, and became absorbed in her last mania - miniatures. Miniature people in miniature houses with miniature furniture in miniature yards with miniature trees and miniature dogs.
She made little tableaux by getting rocks and sprinking artificial grass on them, here and there, and situating, with glue, the miniature people and trees and houses, here and there. But she didn't limit herself to miniatures. She drew pastels of circus clowns, framed them and hung them on the wall. She sculpted with metal rods and wire. She worked with anything that came to hand.
Over time, the house filled up with miniatures and arts and craft materials. In some rooms, there was no place to sit down. She spun the cocoon around her until it seemed there was only space, at the center, for her bed and a TV.
Eventually, her 60-year-old Camels habit began to catch up with her. She suffered several small strokes, spent some time in the hospital, and resumed her long-standing feud with her doctors. She did stop smoking.
During this time, David and Rick, as the brothers still in town, drew the duty of caring for her. David took the major role, with power of attorney, paying her bills and taking care of the house, as well as providing regular company. Rick, I think, provided an emotional connection. When she had to go to the hospital, David would come by every day, or so, as time permitted. Rick came to see her, too, on a regular basis.
David took the brunt of her dissatisfactions with the way things were going, in general. He heard about the stuff she needed that she didn't have, and the stuff she had that she didn't need.
I'm pretty sure that I would not have done as good a job, if I had been in that position. I think Billy would agree with me on that one.
Then Mama had a bigger stroke that sent her to the hospital with dim prospects of coming home again. Billy and I were called and we came to Nashville. We saw her in the hospital, unconscious and hooked up to all the machines. The doctors said there was little hope, but then, just like Johnny Cammareri's mother, she revived and demanded to be sent home.
She came home, but found that her quality of life had diminished. She had to have round-the-clock care and that meant people in the house she didn't know. Even though these caregivers were very professional and understanding with her, she complained about them until they all quit.
The only option left was a nursing home. She resisted it as long as she could, but David eventually told her that she couldn't keep living alone - even if he came by every day, it wouldn't be enough. So, begrudgingly, she went to a nursing home, but she made everybody there miserable and they evicted her.
The next time she went to a nursing home, they adjusted her drug regimen and she became placid and slept a lot. She said that she enjoyed sleeping because she had wonderful dreams.
Betty and I drove up a few times to see her. The last time we went, she was sleeping the whole time we were there. The time before that, she was awake but couldn't speak. I wondered how much she was aware of anything. The nursing home put on an entertainment, that day, with amateur groups playing instruments and singing. We wheeled Mama down with the others and saw the show. Mama didn't seem to know what was going on. After the show, we stayed with her a little longer in the waiting room. David held her hand the whole time.
When we left the nursing home, I asked Betty if she thought that Mama was aware of anything.
Betty said, "She talked to me."
I said, "When?"
"When we were in the waiting room."
"I didn't hear anything."
"She didn't actually talk - she mouthed the words to me without making any sound"
"What did she say?"
"She said: 'I'm just waiting to die.'"
I decided to drive by Compton Avenue before going back to our motel. I went where I thought it was, but it wasn't there. The house had disappeared. The hill was gone.
Later, I found out that I was looking in the wrong place. I was dumbfounded to find that Compton Avenue is right across the street from the Sterling Court Apartments, where I had my paper route.
The old house was torn down years ago. Purists may argue that the hill is still there. But it's not the hill of my memory.
My mother, Ethel Young, was born in that house and lived there with her older sisters, Catherine and Virginia. Actually, I'm told that all three were birthed in Covington, Tennessee, out of a family tradition, and then brought home to the house on Compton. Dr. T. Hugh Young was paterfamilias to these children, with his wife, and their mother, Hazel, who had been a Crippen, until her marriage to Dr. Young. Despite this fact, Hazel's mother was a Gillespie, owing to a second marriage, following the death of Mr. Crippen. Dr. Young, it can be said without fear of contradiction, was descended from a long line of Youngs. His mother came from a long line of Dennisons. They all lived together in the house on Compton Avenue, including Aunt Nanny Penuel, following the death of Mr. Penuel.
Even though I never met her, Grandma Gillespie was the one I remember most clearly, because my mother talked more about her to me. In photographs, she was regal and elegant. And she painted - we had in our house, as I was growing up, a large oil painting of a sylvan landscape that always looked good to me. Grandma Gillespie seemed to be my mother's favorite.
Dr. Young was bald, but distinguished-looking. He graduated from the Vanderbilt Medical School and made a career of doing insurance medicals for the Life and Casualty Co. In pictures, he seems formal and stern in an old-line, patrician way, but he could smile broadly when the situation warranted it, as when he donned his Fez and marched in the Shriner's Parade. I have to hand it to him - you couldn't pay me to don a Fez.
Life in the Compton house, during my mother's childhood, was one of easy privilege, as it was practiced in those days. All the meals for the large family were prepared by the family cook, Sadie, who ruled the kitchen with the authority of an absolute despot. Even Dr. Young, himself, might be threatened with an iron skillet if he wandered into the kitchen, before dinner, in search of a drumstick.
Aunt Virginia says that Ethel loved animals as a girl and she was always befriending creatures and bringing them home. There's a story of her dragging a stray pony home, once. Mama must have been something of a tomboy. On weekends, she liked going with her father, searching for Indian relics in the countryside of Tennessee and Kentucky. Dr. Young was a noted collector of Indian relics, which didn't surprise me because I always thought he looked like an Indian.
Mama was a young girl during the twenties, which is probably lucky in that it saved her from flapperdom. She entered her teens in the early thirties, when things had calmed down a lot. Still, I have a memory of hearing that she learned to drive a car at age twelve and started smoking soon after that. In those days, that was living with reckless abandon.
One thing that I didn't appreciate until I was grown is how stunningly beautiful she was, but still with the fresh-faced look of a girl who looked good in her time, or in ours.In the late thirties, a couple of things happened that separated her life up to that time from what it would become.
In December, 1937, she married Rinkey Blumen. One month later, her mother died.
Parents don't tell their children anything of importance about themselves. Mama never spoke of her mother to me, and I have no idea how she ever became involved with Rinkey Blumen.
I was curious enough, however, to ask her about it a few years ago. She said he was the only boy she knew who had a car.
They went on to have five children, all boys. I was the first.
I remember my early years as idyllic. I got my mother's undivided attention and a gold star in my book every time I did something good. And she introduced me to the family rituals of the time: on Sunday afternoons, if it was nice, she would take me to visit Aunt Nanny Penuel. Every Easter, Nanny always colored a dozen eggs and hid them around the house for me to find. Once, we made a visit in the summer, and when we left, I asked Mama about the strange smell in the house. Mama laughed. she said Nanny had forgotten where she hid a few of those Easter eggs.
Then, before I started school, David and Billy showed up. I had to adjust my claim on mama's attention.
She and Daddy seemed to get along really well in the early years, but over time, perceived slights accumulated on both sides to a point where they enjoyed nothing more than a loud argument, with yelling, each one saying unkind things about the other. Actually, I'm not sure they enjoyed it, but they did it a lot.
Mama could give as good as she got. In fact, an impartial observer might say that Daddy was overmatched. She had a fine temper and a sharp wit that came into play when she was angry. She was particularly sensitive to any feeling that she was getting the short end of the stick.
When she let out with these zingers, she wasn't trying to be funny, but sometimes it was hard to keep from laughing, because they were funny. A misplaced sense of propriety prevents me from giving any examples.
I remember, one time, my father came home with a solution to a problem that had vexed the family for some time - David and I were both carrying paper routes and we both needed cars, but there weren't enough to go around. We had three cars, so my father said that he would drive one, I would drive one, and David would have the third.
Mama fixed him with one eye and said, "What am I supposed to do?"
Clearly, Daddy's plan had a flaw. Mama offered a compromise.
She said, "That's fine. I'll just drive you to work every morning and pick you up every evening."
We became a four car family.
But I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I think Mama really enjoyed being the mother of three boys. She threw herself into cub scouting with gusto and was a perennial Den Mother. Rick Drewry remembers being in one of those dens. I think she got to work out all her tomboyish aspirations on the Scouting Movement.
She did it for so long that one year, to our astonishment, she was given The Long Rifle award, an honor that is usually bestowed on the scout of the year. She was the only Den Mother who had ever been recognized in that way. After that, she got more respect from the kids in the neighborhood - word went around that she had a rifle.
The year before I started Hillsboro, Mama's life took another sharp turn: she got pregnant, again. I guess the thought of dealing with four children into her forties sent her into a tailspin, because, for the next nine months, she sat on the couch and wouldn't talk to anybody. I didn't realize what was going on, but it had a big effect on me. I clammed up, too. Something went into myself and never came out again. Even when I was grown, and had figured out what happened, I was not able to act naturally around her or any of my brothers. What ever it was that had taken cover inside me couldn't understand why his Mama stopped talking to him.
She came out of her mood when she saw her new son. The advent of Rick, and later, Joel, chased her blues away and she threw herself into the business of managing five boys to adulthood. In the process, she must have made her peace with her life, the way we all have to do.
As she came out of this low period, she began a life-long feud with her doctors. When she had been depressed, they loaded her up with pills. When the depression lifted, the doctors thought she should keep taking the pills. She went along with their advice for a while, but one day she flushed all her pills down the toilet and refused to take any more. She said she never felt better in her life.
During this time, we would visit the house on Compton Avenue on rare occasions, usually at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I believe my cousins, Charlie and Doug, and cousin Catherine Ann, spent more time there than we did. Catherine Ann, in particular, learned cooking by the pinch from old Sadie.
My memories of Compton are few. I think Mama had a feud going on with her father, too - something about his taste in second wives. When his wife, Hazel, died, Dr. Young married a woman who had worked in his office. I don't know if she had been his nurse or his receptionist, but Margaret took pride in becoming the doyenne of Compton Avenue. At Christmas, she entertained us by playing a large, pedal harp that she kept in the front parlor. And no discouraging word was heard from anyone.
I remember one Thanksgiving, dinner was over and Dr. Young was having his cigar. No one had left the table. The conversation was light. I was still just a kid and didn't talk, myself.
Someone - probably Aunt Virginia - mentioned that I was a stamp collector. Aunt Virginia, herself, had a large collection of U.S. mint stamps and I had gotten interested from her. Anyway, Dr. Young asked me what kind of stamps I liked to collect and I said First Day Covers and Plate Number Blocks.
He smiled broadly and asked me if I had ever seen a Zeppelin First Day Cover. I said I'd never seen one, but I had heard about them - they were worth several hundred dollars each.
Dr. Young directed someone to fetch a box from an upstairs closet. It was set in front of him and he opened it with an air of formality and brought out 15 or 20 Zeppelin First Day covers. I was astonished. I looked over at Aunt Virginia and she appeared to be surprised, too.
The old gentleman seemed pleased with himself. He laid the Zeppelins aside and asked me what a Plate Number Block was. I said it was a block of four stamps, taken from the corner of a 50-stamp sheet that had the Plate Number of the sheet on it.
I think he knew what I was talking about, because he reached into his box again and brought out a stack of 50-stamp sheets, all U.S. Commemorative issues - the National Parks, the Army and Navy Series, and others, that had been issued back in the 1930's. I was familiar with the stamps, but I had never seen whole sheets of them before.
Dr. Young invited me to come over beside him for a closer look and he got me to explain where the Plate Numbers were located, sometimes at the top of the sheet and sometimes at the bottom.He said, "Would you like to have some of these for your collection?" I said that I would. The next thing I knew, he was tearing the Plate Number corners out of all the sheets! Aunt Virginia was aghast. I knew she was thinking that a complete sheet was a whole lot better than a block, and he was destroying every sheet he had! Nobody said a word. I looked over at Mama and she looked very pleased. I don't remember how Margaret looked.
That might have been the last time I was in the Compton house.
The intervening years were full of activity. We lived on the corner of Stokes Lane and Stokesmont Road. Charlotte Kinnard lived in an interesting stone house down the street and Larry Copeland and John Wilson lived up at the top of Benham Avenue on Redoubt Number 1. Lucy Love lived on Hopkins, I think. The Womacks were across the street, Richard Cotten on the street behind them, and going down Stokes toward Belmont, Wally Wolf and Bunny Michel hung out. Not with each other, of course.
We had a big yard and, in summertime, kids would come from all over the neighborhood to play softball on our front lawn. Home Plate was right in front of the house, where all the windows were, and you got a home run if you hit it over Stokes Lane. Mama would serve lemonade between innings. I think some of the guys wished that she was their mother. They were the ones who came around even when I wasn't there.
But she was not without manias. One was houses. My father told me once that Mama made him build three houses and, each time, he got further in debt. Apparently, she wanted stuff that you couldn't just get out of a bin in the hardware store or the Sears Catalog. Harvey's didn't have it.
At 4317 Lealand Lane, we had glass bricks in our garage before glass bricks were cool. At that time, there were only two houses on that stretch of Lealand - ours and the house where the contractor, who had built both houses, lived. His name was Cartwright and he was the father of John and LaNeve Cartwright, whom we've heard tell about.
In the woods, behind our houses, rusting monkey cages from the old Glendale Zoo were being actively reclaimed by nature. At night, I heard strange, metal sounds.
The Stokes Lane house was very contemporary: in the living room, there was a smart-looking fireplace with no flue. The only time we ever started a fire in it was during the blizzard of '51. We were lucky we didn't get killed.
Stokes Lane had a rec room with a linoleum floor, laid out like a chessboard, which Mama had specifically designed and commissioned. It was her idea to make a set of wooden chessmen, each two feet tall, so Alex, L. D. and I could play big chess on the rec room floor. Everybody thought that was cool, but somehow the chessmen never got made.
In the dining room, there was a blond mahogany table that folded up into a perfect square, right under a light, that was recessed into the ceiling, and which cast a beam, through some special lens, in a perfectly square shape, illuminating the square, folded-up table to its exact proportions. I believe we were the only people in the neighborhood with one of those.
Another mania Mama had was for papier mache. If you knew my mother, you might argue that this was part of a more general mania she had for arts and crafts in any medium whatsoever, and you would be right. But I want to emphasize that she was a master of papier mache.
There were years when, any time you came into our living room, day or night, you would be confronted by a long table, covered with newspapers, with great vats of papier mache paste on either end. Rolls of chickenwire were stacked up in the corners. On the table, at any given time, there were several constructions in different stages of production. Paste was on everything.
She liked making animals by sculpting the bodies out of chickenwire and then covering them over with papier mache. Once, she made a big thing about four feet tall that stood on the floor. Everybody who saw it said it looked like a dang donkey. So, we started taking it to football games. It was such a hit that I suggested that she make some papier mache students, next. I was something of a wit, back then.
In those days, it seemed that we lived in a continual maelstrom. Mama's job was to keep it going. Eventually, the first three of us brothers grew up and scattered. Rick and Joel stayed behind and got caught in the sixties. Rick made it through somehow, but Joel didn't.
Actually, Daddy was the first to go. They said that he was walking up a long hill to a church for somebody else's funeral, and collapsed just before he got to the door. There's something in that image that I just can't shake.
Mama said that she would miss him, but that was about all. She didn't say much about Joel, either, in my hearing. As with her mother, she took all that inside her and left it there. I can understand that.
For the next 30 years, after we kids had all moved on, Mama lived alone. She complained about loneliness, but I think she enjoyed the peace and quiet.
She moved to a smaller house not far from Woodmont and Estes, and became absorbed in her last mania - miniatures. Miniature people in miniature houses with miniature furniture in miniature yards with miniature trees and miniature dogs.
She made little tableaux by getting rocks and sprinking artificial grass on them, here and there, and situating, with glue, the miniature people and trees and houses, here and there. But she didn't limit herself to miniatures. She drew pastels of circus clowns, framed them and hung them on the wall. She sculpted with metal rods and wire. She worked with anything that came to hand.
Over time, the house filled up with miniatures and arts and craft materials. In some rooms, there was no place to sit down. She spun the cocoon around her until it seemed there was only space, at the center, for her bed and a TV.
Eventually, her 60-year-old Camels habit began to catch up with her. She suffered several small strokes, spent some time in the hospital, and resumed her long-standing feud with her doctors. She did stop smoking.
During this time, David and Rick, as the brothers still in town, drew the duty of caring for her. David took the major role, with power of attorney, paying her bills and taking care of the house, as well as providing regular company. Rick, I think, provided an emotional connection. When she had to go to the hospital, David would come by every day, or so, as time permitted. Rick came to see her, too, on a regular basis.
David took the brunt of her dissatisfactions with the way things were going, in general. He heard about the stuff she needed that she didn't have, and the stuff she had that she didn't need.
I'm pretty sure that I would not have done as good a job, if I had been in that position. I think Billy would agree with me on that one.
Then Mama had a bigger stroke that sent her to the hospital with dim prospects of coming home again. Billy and I were called and we came to Nashville. We saw her in the hospital, unconscious and hooked up to all the machines. The doctors said there was little hope, but then, just like Johnny Cammareri's mother, she revived and demanded to be sent home.
She came home, but found that her quality of life had diminished. She had to have round-the-clock care and that meant people in the house she didn't know. Even though these caregivers were very professional and understanding with her, she complained about them until they all quit.
The only option left was a nursing home. She resisted it as long as she could, but David eventually told her that she couldn't keep living alone - even if he came by every day, it wouldn't be enough. So, begrudgingly, she went to a nursing home, but she made everybody there miserable and they evicted her.
The next time she went to a nursing home, they adjusted her drug regimen and she became placid and slept a lot. She said that she enjoyed sleeping because she had wonderful dreams.
Betty and I drove up a few times to see her. The last time we went, she was sleeping the whole time we were there. The time before that, she was awake but couldn't speak. I wondered how much she was aware of anything. The nursing home put on an entertainment, that day, with amateur groups playing instruments and singing. We wheeled Mama down with the others and saw the show. Mama didn't seem to know what was going on. After the show, we stayed with her a little longer in the waiting room. David held her hand the whole time.
When we left the nursing home, I asked Betty if she thought that Mama was aware of anything.
Betty said, "She talked to me."
I said, "When?"
"When we were in the waiting room."
"I didn't hear anything."
"She didn't actually talk - she mouthed the words to me without making any sound"
"What did she say?"
"She said: 'I'm just waiting to die.'"
I decided to drive by Compton Avenue before going back to our motel. I went where I thought it was, but it wasn't there. The house had disappeared. The hill was gone.
Later, I found out that I was looking in the wrong place. I was dumbfounded to find that Compton Avenue is right across the street from the Sterling Court Apartments, where I had my paper route.
The old house was torn down years ago. Purists may argue that the hill is still there. But it's not the hill of my memory.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Churchgoing
For a half-Jewish kid, I have spent a lot of time in churches.
One of my earliest memories is being in an old country church with my mother. It must have been hot - all the windows were open and everyone was fanning themselves with cardboard fans that had Biblical verses and pictures on them.
Some time later, my father asserted his prerogative as paterfamilias and I started going to Sunday School at the West End Synagogue. That went on for several years. When I was nine, I started going to Hebrew School there, two afternoons a week, after school. The purpose of this was to prepare me for Bar Mitzvah. The whole year before my thirteenth birthday I spent memorizing a long passage from the Torah in Hebrew. And I had to learn how to chant it, as well, in the same way that Cantor Glusman would sing it. So I had to memorize the chanting, too. I learned it by repeating the lines over and over again. Cantor Glusman taught me the chanting, one phrase at a time, until I could do the whole thing perfectly. I also had to memorize a speech, written for me by Rabbi Hertzberg.
At my Bar Mitzvah ceremony, I did the Hebrew chanting part fine, but I forgot the last line of the speech. I was mortified. I looked over at Rabbi Hertzberg, but he didn't know. Finally, I mumbled something under my breath and sat down.
Later at the reception, an old man took me aside and said, "Don't worry - last year, Rabbi Hertzberg, himself, forgot what he was going to say."
By tradition, everybody congratulated me for becoming a man. I've always respected my Jewish heritage, but, afterward, I decided that being a man meant making your own decisions. So I stopped going to Synagogue.
For a while, I went to the Woodmont Christian Church at Woodmont and Hillsboro Road, but I don't remember why. I liked the church and I liked the steeple, but I don't remember any of the people I met there. Across the street, the Woodmont Baptist Church was a complete mystery to me. I didn't know what went on in there.
Betty went to Second Presbyterian Church on Belmont. So, when we hooked up, I started going there with her. I went there for five years, until we got married and moved away.
I liked the church building at Second. It was small, but it looked just the way you'd want a church to look. I liked the people, too. Mr. Bittinger was the minister and Mary Bittinger was his wife. She had a Ph.D. in religious history, but, apparently, it was something you didn't talk about much in church. Mr. Bittinger had a more emotional approach to religion. He would stand in the pulpit and stare out into the air above the congregation until something welled up in him that he couldn't suppress. It was hard not to be affected by the full-of-grace look that would come over his face as the words rolled out, so fast, at times, that he seemed to be talking like a little child.
I liked Mr. Bittinger's sermons for the way they made me feel. I also enjoyed the choir, featuring the purest of Irish tenors, Ross Mandigo.
Among the congregation, first and foremost for their spiritual dedication, were Oscar and Henrietta Nelson, medical missionaries to Africa. I remember Mrs. Nelson for the loudness of her singing. Then there was, although I don't remember seeing him in church, Dr. Otis Graham, the head of the Monroe Harding Orphanage, and father of Otis, Jr., Fred and Hugh. All the Monroe Harding children, of course, went to Second Presbyterian.
And so many others - Finleys, Braceys, Geers, Stearns. Rick Drewry and Edward Lyman went to Second Presbyterian with their families.
But the real light of the congregation, the one person who seemed to represent bright hope to everyone, was Betty's mother. Ruth Harris had a light around her. She made everyone happy by just being there. Betty idolized her mother. And so did I.
Betty and I got married at Second Presbyterian and it was just the right size. We had a small wedding with just the families, but they filled the church. A couple of my father's sisters - my aunts - came, and I believe they had never been in a Christian church before. I remember that they seemed uneasy and nervous about being there, as though they expected Yahweh to strike them down at any second.
After the wedding, we drove off for California and never came back to live in Nashville again. A few years ago, Second Presbyterian Church burned beyond repair. We heard about it when it happened and then we heard that the church would be re-built.
A couple of years ago, we had occasion to visit Second Presbyterian again, where the new congregation had raised a fine, new building. We marveled at the sight of it, but realized that they had not re-built the church at all. They had built another church there, on the spot where the old one used to be. And it suited them just fine.
One of my earliest memories is being in an old country church with my mother. It must have been hot - all the windows were open and everyone was fanning themselves with cardboard fans that had Biblical verses and pictures on them.
Some time later, my father asserted his prerogative as paterfamilias and I started going to Sunday School at the West End Synagogue. That went on for several years. When I was nine, I started going to Hebrew School there, two afternoons a week, after school. The purpose of this was to prepare me for Bar Mitzvah. The whole year before my thirteenth birthday I spent memorizing a long passage from the Torah in Hebrew. And I had to learn how to chant it, as well, in the same way that Cantor Glusman would sing it. So I had to memorize the chanting, too. I learned it by repeating the lines over and over again. Cantor Glusman taught me the chanting, one phrase at a time, until I could do the whole thing perfectly. I also had to memorize a speech, written for me by Rabbi Hertzberg.
At my Bar Mitzvah ceremony, I did the Hebrew chanting part fine, but I forgot the last line of the speech. I was mortified. I looked over at Rabbi Hertzberg, but he didn't know. Finally, I mumbled something under my breath and sat down.
Later at the reception, an old man took me aside and said, "Don't worry - last year, Rabbi Hertzberg, himself, forgot what he was going to say."
By tradition, everybody congratulated me for becoming a man. I've always respected my Jewish heritage, but, afterward, I decided that being a man meant making your own decisions. So I stopped going to Synagogue.
For a while, I went to the Woodmont Christian Church at Woodmont and Hillsboro Road, but I don't remember why. I liked the church and I liked the steeple, but I don't remember any of the people I met there. Across the street, the Woodmont Baptist Church was a complete mystery to me. I didn't know what went on in there.
Betty went to Second Presbyterian Church on Belmont. So, when we hooked up, I started going there with her. I went there for five years, until we got married and moved away.
I liked the church building at Second. It was small, but it looked just the way you'd want a church to look. I liked the people, too. Mr. Bittinger was the minister and Mary Bittinger was his wife. She had a Ph.D. in religious history, but, apparently, it was something you didn't talk about much in church. Mr. Bittinger had a more emotional approach to religion. He would stand in the pulpit and stare out into the air above the congregation until something welled up in him that he couldn't suppress. It was hard not to be affected by the full-of-grace look that would come over his face as the words rolled out, so fast, at times, that he seemed to be talking like a little child.
I liked Mr. Bittinger's sermons for the way they made me feel. I also enjoyed the choir, featuring the purest of Irish tenors, Ross Mandigo.
Among the congregation, first and foremost for their spiritual dedication, were Oscar and Henrietta Nelson, medical missionaries to Africa. I remember Mrs. Nelson for the loudness of her singing. Then there was, although I don't remember seeing him in church, Dr. Otis Graham, the head of the Monroe Harding Orphanage, and father of Otis, Jr., Fred and Hugh. All the Monroe Harding children, of course, went to Second Presbyterian.
And so many others - Finleys, Braceys, Geers, Stearns. Rick Drewry and Edward Lyman went to Second Presbyterian with their families.
But the real light of the congregation, the one person who seemed to represent bright hope to everyone, was Betty's mother. Ruth Harris had a light around her. She made everyone happy by just being there. Betty idolized her mother. And so did I.
Betty and I got married at Second Presbyterian and it was just the right size. We had a small wedding with just the families, but they filled the church. A couple of my father's sisters - my aunts - came, and I believe they had never been in a Christian church before. I remember that they seemed uneasy and nervous about being there, as though they expected Yahweh to strike them down at any second.
After the wedding, we drove off for California and never came back to live in Nashville again. A few years ago, Second Presbyterian Church burned beyond repair. We heard about it when it happened and then we heard that the church would be re-built.
A couple of years ago, we had occasion to visit Second Presbyterian again, where the new congregation had raised a fine, new building. We marveled at the sight of it, but realized that they had not re-built the church at all. They had built another church there, on the spot where the old one used to be. And it suited them just fine.
Monday, December 24, 2007
A Child's Christmas in Nashville
It's well regarded that Christmas, as we Americans practice it, is a special time for children. Children see the magical aspect of everything, but especially Christmas.
One of the things that I try to do, each year, is to recover the ways I felt as a child in Nashville, during the Christmas season. I know now that I imbued the things I saw with magical qualities back then, but at the time I thought that the magic was in the things.
The feeling of Christmas started for me early in the fall, when the weather became chilly and the winds blew the leaves off the trees. At school, we kept our minds off the darkening days outside by reading stories and drawing pictures about, first, Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally Christmas.
We got ideas by reading Play Mate magazine which was written, each month, by Esther Cooper and illustrated by Fern Bisel Peat. I was especially taken with "A Tale of Peter Pig", a story written in rhyme, each time, by Cooper about some pigly adventure, in keeping with the season. Every installment began in the same way: "Now, Peter Pig decided..." At Christmas, there were adventures with snow and sharing winter cheer and singing carols.
Nowadays, we hear Christmas carols sung constantly at Christmastime, but in school we sang them. The song that, for some reason, always takes me back to those times is this one:
Up on the rooftop,
Click, click, click!
Down through the chimney
With good Saint Nick!
I remember, once, during these early days, my father took me to a barber shop on West End Avenue on Christmas Eve. It was around 6 o'clock, but already dark outside, where wisps of snow were threatening to become something more.
I don't remember whether I got a haircut, or my father did, but there was a radio playing behind the barber, and at one point the program was interrupted by an announcement that Santa Claus had been sighted, making his way toward Nashville. Both the barber and my father made a big deal out of that with me. At the time, I was old enough to be skeptical about Santa Claus, but young enough to be impressed that the news was coming over the radio. When we left the shop, I thought that it was awfully cold out to be riding a sleigh through the air, but at Christmas, the idea was exciting.
Christmastime, then, was a time for going out, despite the cold. A special treat was going downtown to look in the windows of the department stores. We would always look in the window of the Krystal on Church Street to see the doughnuts coming out of the doughnut machine.
Sometimes, we would end up eating at the Krystal, but in those years when the Spirit of Christmas Present had smiled on our family, we would go around on Union to the B&W for a treat. We would walk down the cafeteria line, salivating like Cratchits, before the bounty of food that was laid out. There were several kinds of everything! I always got the fried haddock, which I covered with ketchup.
After such a fine repast, we would once again brave the chilly winds outside, but not without stopping at the window of the B.H. Stief Jewelry company. At Christmas, and at no other time, there were the most marvelous automatons on display in B.H. Stief's windows. Mechanical figures of firemen or farmers, or what not (there was a new display every year), driven by some invisible, but intelligent force to put out the fire or milk the cow, or what not.
In the eighth grade, we put on the Christmas Pageant and tried out, in our own declaiming, the great cadences of Luke:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night...
And Carolyn Suter played the Twelfth Street Rag on the piano.
And I have a memory of being on the fourth floor of Loveman's with my mother, near Christmas, when the elevator door opened and a band of carolers stepped out, singing "Adeste Fideles" for everyone there.
And on our televisions, we watched "Amahl and the Night Visitors."
And one night, we saw Buzz Evans sing "O Holy Night" on TV.
Christmas was everywhere celebrated and observed, then. Now, it isn't. It's getting hard, even, to find Scrooge during this season. We have, instead, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and "A Christmas Story", and we may think there's no magic in them. And we may feel sorry for our children. But our children continue to do what children always do. They put the magic in.
One of the things that I try to do, each year, is to recover the ways I felt as a child in Nashville, during the Christmas season. I know now that I imbued the things I saw with magical qualities back then, but at the time I thought that the magic was in the things.
The feeling of Christmas started for me early in the fall, when the weather became chilly and the winds blew the leaves off the trees. At school, we kept our minds off the darkening days outside by reading stories and drawing pictures about, first, Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally Christmas.
We got ideas by reading Play Mate magazine which was written, each month, by Esther Cooper and illustrated by Fern Bisel Peat. I was especially taken with "A Tale of Peter Pig", a story written in rhyme, each time, by Cooper about some pigly adventure, in keeping with the season. Every installment began in the same way: "Now, Peter Pig decided..." At Christmas, there were adventures with snow and sharing winter cheer and singing carols.
Nowadays, we hear Christmas carols sung constantly at Christmastime, but in school we sang them. The song that, for some reason, always takes me back to those times is this one:
Up on the rooftop,
Click, click, click!
Down through the chimney
With good Saint Nick!
I remember, once, during these early days, my father took me to a barber shop on West End Avenue on Christmas Eve. It was around 6 o'clock, but already dark outside, where wisps of snow were threatening to become something more.
I don't remember whether I got a haircut, or my father did, but there was a radio playing behind the barber, and at one point the program was interrupted by an announcement that Santa Claus had been sighted, making his way toward Nashville. Both the barber and my father made a big deal out of that with me. At the time, I was old enough to be skeptical about Santa Claus, but young enough to be impressed that the news was coming over the radio. When we left the shop, I thought that it was awfully cold out to be riding a sleigh through the air, but at Christmas, the idea was exciting.
Christmastime, then, was a time for going out, despite the cold. A special treat was going downtown to look in the windows of the department stores. We would always look in the window of the Krystal on Church Street to see the doughnuts coming out of the doughnut machine.
Sometimes, we would end up eating at the Krystal, but in those years when the Spirit of Christmas Present had smiled on our family, we would go around on Union to the B&W for a treat. We would walk down the cafeteria line, salivating like Cratchits, before the bounty of food that was laid out. There were several kinds of everything! I always got the fried haddock, which I covered with ketchup.
After such a fine repast, we would once again brave the chilly winds outside, but not without stopping at the window of the B.H. Stief Jewelry company. At Christmas, and at no other time, there were the most marvelous automatons on display in B.H. Stief's windows. Mechanical figures of firemen or farmers, or what not (there was a new display every year), driven by some invisible, but intelligent force to put out the fire or milk the cow, or what not.
In the eighth grade, we put on the Christmas Pageant and tried out, in our own declaiming, the great cadences of Luke:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night...
And Carolyn Suter played the Twelfth Street Rag on the piano.
And I have a memory of being on the fourth floor of Loveman's with my mother, near Christmas, when the elevator door opened and a band of carolers stepped out, singing "Adeste Fideles" for everyone there.
And on our televisions, we watched "Amahl and the Night Visitors."
And one night, we saw Buzz Evans sing "O Holy Night" on TV.
Christmas was everywhere celebrated and observed, then. Now, it isn't. It's getting hard, even, to find Scrooge during this season. We have, instead, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and "A Christmas Story", and we may think there's no magic in them. And we may feel sorry for our children. But our children continue to do what children always do. They put the magic in.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Legend of Rinkey Blumen
He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, to Russian immigrant parents in late 1912. His name was Abraham. His mother, who never learned a word of English, called him in Russian, "Avrum."
When she called him in from playing in the neighborhood, she used his nickname: "Avrumkey!" The kids in the neighborhood didn't know what she was saying. To them, it sounded like "Rinkey!" She kept on calling him "Avrumkey." But Rinkey stuck.
When he was nine years old, he sold newspapers on a corner in downtown Birmingham. What he had to do to secure that corner is not known, but he brought money back to his family every night.
When they all moved to Nashville, he got another corner and kept on selling papers. Once, during this time, he fell off the back of a paper truck and injured his back. He didn't go to a doctor. His idea of medical treatment was to spend the night in the local steambath. So he developed chronic arthritis in his back, which caused him to bend over slightly when he walked. Nevertheless, he grew up, went to high school in Nashville, played on the basketball team and kept on selling newspapers. Rinkey Blumen stayed in the newspaper circulation business his entire life.
In the thirties, he became a route manager. He had paperboys working for him. I don't know exactly when, or how long, he did this, but somehow he became beloved by a whole generation of Nashville kids who grew up during the depression. Years later, when grown men would find out that I was Rinkey Blumen's son, they all had to tell me about how they carried a paper route for my daddy, back in the old days. One time, Richard Fulton, the Tennessee Congressman, told me that he used to carry a paper route for Rinkey Blumen. I guess he thought I would be impressed.
In the thirties, times were hard. A lot of people didn't have the price of a newspaper. During these lean times, Rinkey Blumen took advantage of other skills that he had learned on the street: he could count cards and he could calculate odds. So he got jobs in Nashville roadhouses, on the outskirts of town, dealing blackjack. He never gambled himself, because he knew that the odds favored the house. He worked for the house.
I know very little about the things he was doing, during this period, but he probably ran numbers, for a while. By that time, he was married with a family to support. I remember once, when we were living in a duplex on Granny White Pike, he came home after dark, pulled down the shades, and threw four thousand dollars, in small bills, out on the kitchen table for counting. Mamma didn't like that and she made him quit. Later on, he was glad he did, because several of his buddies got arrested and went to Federal prison for being in the numbers racket.
He never talked about his life much, but in later years he retained a keen interest in the football teams of colleges he never went to. I saw him, more than once, looking wistfully at football cards on saturday afternoons in the fall.
And he played solitaire all the time. In between games, he would shuffle the deck in a way that I have never seen anyone else do: he would start out, holding the deck in front of him with both hands, thumbs in front and fingers in back. With his left thumb, he would cut the deck precisely in two, separating it into two halves, grasping the top half in his left hand and the bottom half in his right. Then he would position each half-deck so that their corners were almost touching. His thumbs were in just the right position: he riffled both sets of cards simultaneously in a way that produced a very slight fluttering sound and the cards in the two half-decks interleaved in precise sequence at the corners. Finally, he would move the two halves together, with his hands, in one smooth motion, so that he ended with the cards united again into one deck, held in both his hands, exactly as he had started out. This allowed him to do several quick shuffles in succession. It was the most elegant set of moves I have ever seen.
Only once, did I get a glimpse of him in real action. I was twelve and he took me to the pool hall that is still halfway between the defunct Melrose theater, that is on one end of that stretch, and the Melrose Bowling Alley on the other end. I sat on a tall stool and watched him run a few balls by himself, just for fun. Then a couple of young slicks came in and watched him for a while. After a few minutes, one of them asked him if he would like to play a little game for money. My father said that he was just having a little fun by himself, but they encouraged him, saying that he was a better player than they were and he'd probably win. Finally, my old man took a five dollar bill from his pocket and put it on the table. The slick did the same and made a big deal out of letting the "older" man go first. My father broke, a ball went in and he took another shot, but missed. The slick then stepped up, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and ran a couple of balls off the table, before he missed. My father chalked his cue and then - holding the stick at its back end with just one hand, and resting the the tip end on the cushion of the table - he ran all the remaining balls in, while the slick looked on, with the cigarette still hanging out of his mouth. My father swept up the money, stepped quickly over to me, and said, "Let's go, son."
We went down to the bowling alley and had a couple of cokes from the fountain. He told me there that the best pool player he had ever seen was Willie Mosconi.
After he quit his evil ways, the newspaper business became my father's sole occupation. At that time, the top guy at the Newspaper Printing Corporation was a man named Joe Connor, the City Circulation Director, who held up his pants with galluses and always had a cigar in his mouth. He measured progress by how many people started taking the paper and how many stopped. Back then, Tennessee was solidly democratic, so the circulation of the Tennessean was always up, but that of the Banner was always down. Around that time, I wrote a short story called "The Devil and Joe Connor", about a man who would go to Hell for a Banner start. It tickled my father and he showed it to Joe Connor. I never heard what he thought about it.
Rinkey Blumen's ambition was to become the City Circulation Director, himself, some day. When Joe Connor died, he thought he had a chance, but the job was given to Cleo Barbee, instead. The top executive at the paper who made the decision was Walter Seigenthaler, who for years published the "Hambone" feature on the Tennessean's first page, under the name of "Seig". My father idolized the man, calling him "Mr. Seig". Seigenthaler explained that it was Cleo Barbee's turn for the job and that my father would have his time eventually. And, in time, it came to pass.
In his later years, Rinkey Blumen joined the Elks Club that was located next to the Andrew Jackson hotel on the square opposite the State Capitol. There he spent his spare time, playing hearts and gin rummy with his pals, where more than once, in the plush rooms on the second floor, he was heard to say with a flourish, "I have ginned on you, Averbush!"
When she called him in from playing in the neighborhood, she used his nickname: "Avrumkey!" The kids in the neighborhood didn't know what she was saying. To them, it sounded like "Rinkey!" She kept on calling him "Avrumkey." But Rinkey stuck.
When he was nine years old, he sold newspapers on a corner in downtown Birmingham. What he had to do to secure that corner is not known, but he brought money back to his family every night.
When they all moved to Nashville, he got another corner and kept on selling papers. Once, during this time, he fell off the back of a paper truck and injured his back. He didn't go to a doctor. His idea of medical treatment was to spend the night in the local steambath. So he developed chronic arthritis in his back, which caused him to bend over slightly when he walked. Nevertheless, he grew up, went to high school in Nashville, played on the basketball team and kept on selling newspapers. Rinkey Blumen stayed in the newspaper circulation business his entire life.
In the thirties, he became a route manager. He had paperboys working for him. I don't know exactly when, or how long, he did this, but somehow he became beloved by a whole generation of Nashville kids who grew up during the depression. Years later, when grown men would find out that I was Rinkey Blumen's son, they all had to tell me about how they carried a paper route for my daddy, back in the old days. One time, Richard Fulton, the Tennessee Congressman, told me that he used to carry a paper route for Rinkey Blumen. I guess he thought I would be impressed.
In the thirties, times were hard. A lot of people didn't have the price of a newspaper. During these lean times, Rinkey Blumen took advantage of other skills that he had learned on the street: he could count cards and he could calculate odds. So he got jobs in Nashville roadhouses, on the outskirts of town, dealing blackjack. He never gambled himself, because he knew that the odds favored the house. He worked for the house.
I know very little about the things he was doing, during this period, but he probably ran numbers, for a while. By that time, he was married with a family to support. I remember once, when we were living in a duplex on Granny White Pike, he came home after dark, pulled down the shades, and threw four thousand dollars, in small bills, out on the kitchen table for counting. Mamma didn't like that and she made him quit. Later on, he was glad he did, because several of his buddies got arrested and went to Federal prison for being in the numbers racket.
He never talked about his life much, but in later years he retained a keen interest in the football teams of colleges he never went to. I saw him, more than once, looking wistfully at football cards on saturday afternoons in the fall.
And he played solitaire all the time. In between games, he would shuffle the deck in a way that I have never seen anyone else do: he would start out, holding the deck in front of him with both hands, thumbs in front and fingers in back. With his left thumb, he would cut the deck precisely in two, separating it into two halves, grasping the top half in his left hand and the bottom half in his right. Then he would position each half-deck so that their corners were almost touching. His thumbs were in just the right position: he riffled both sets of cards simultaneously in a way that produced a very slight fluttering sound and the cards in the two half-decks interleaved in precise sequence at the corners. Finally, he would move the two halves together, with his hands, in one smooth motion, so that he ended with the cards united again into one deck, held in both his hands, exactly as he had started out. This allowed him to do several quick shuffles in succession. It was the most elegant set of moves I have ever seen.
Only once, did I get a glimpse of him in real action. I was twelve and he took me to the pool hall that is still halfway between the defunct Melrose theater, that is on one end of that stretch, and the Melrose Bowling Alley on the other end. I sat on a tall stool and watched him run a few balls by himself, just for fun. Then a couple of young slicks came in and watched him for a while. After a few minutes, one of them asked him if he would like to play a little game for money. My father said that he was just having a little fun by himself, but they encouraged him, saying that he was a better player than they were and he'd probably win. Finally, my old man took a five dollar bill from his pocket and put it on the table. The slick did the same and made a big deal out of letting the "older" man go first. My father broke, a ball went in and he took another shot, but missed. The slick then stepped up, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and ran a couple of balls off the table, before he missed. My father chalked his cue and then - holding the stick at its back end with just one hand, and resting the the tip end on the cushion of the table - he ran all the remaining balls in, while the slick looked on, with the cigarette still hanging out of his mouth. My father swept up the money, stepped quickly over to me, and said, "Let's go, son."
We went down to the bowling alley and had a couple of cokes from the fountain. He told me there that the best pool player he had ever seen was Willie Mosconi.
After he quit his evil ways, the newspaper business became my father's sole occupation. At that time, the top guy at the Newspaper Printing Corporation was a man named Joe Connor, the City Circulation Director, who held up his pants with galluses and always had a cigar in his mouth. He measured progress by how many people started taking the paper and how many stopped. Back then, Tennessee was solidly democratic, so the circulation of the Tennessean was always up, but that of the Banner was always down. Around that time, I wrote a short story called "The Devil and Joe Connor", about a man who would go to Hell for a Banner start. It tickled my father and he showed it to Joe Connor. I never heard what he thought about it.
Rinkey Blumen's ambition was to become the City Circulation Director, himself, some day. When Joe Connor died, he thought he had a chance, but the job was given to Cleo Barbee, instead. The top executive at the paper who made the decision was Walter Seigenthaler, who for years published the "Hambone" feature on the Tennessean's first page, under the name of "Seig". My father idolized the man, calling him "Mr. Seig". Seigenthaler explained that it was Cleo Barbee's turn for the job and that my father would have his time eventually. And, in time, it came to pass.
In his later years, Rinkey Blumen joined the Elks Club that was located next to the Andrew Jackson hotel on the square opposite the State Capitol. There he spent his spare time, playing hearts and gin rummy with his pals, where more than once, in the plush rooms on the second floor, he was heard to say with a flourish, "I have ginned on you, Averbush!"
12th Avenue South
Down on 12th Avenue South, near the park, there were a couple of places that my family and I went during the Stokes years. On one corner of this block I'm thinking about, there was Cayce's Restaurant, and on the other corner of the same block, there was Becker's Bakery.
We went out to eat, once or twice a month, at Cayce's. In the winter, we would get there just as it was getting dark, and, through the big plate glass window near the door, everything inside looked warm and bright. Up front, as you went in, there was a bar where you could get, mainly, beer. And I remember, on the walls, there were these dazzling advertising displays for Budweiser which showed pictures of sport fishing, but with cutouts and a light bulb turning behind, so that the display seemed to sparkle and move - the trout rose magically to the fisherman's fly.
Besides Cayce, who mostly presided over things from behind the bar, there were two waiters, one quiet and the other sharp with the banter, who worked there for years. We got to know them pretty well and they would always kid around with us kids.
When Cayce retired to a life of fishing, he gave the restaurant to the two waiters. They were thrilled to have an opportunity to run a restaurant of their own. We went there several times after they took over, but it wasn't the same - they always met us formally at the door and escorted us to our table with great finesse. There was no more kidding around. I liked them better when they were waiters.
Becker's Bakery was the best bakery in town. Quiet, smiling Mrs. Frensley became an institution there to several generations, both before and after us. Betty and I discovered, fairly early in our relationship, that we had Becker's in common. I liked the Petit Fours and she liked the little pink, green and yellow cookies, shaped like fleurettes, that weren't too sweet, but went all crumbly in your mouth.
Between Cayce's and Becker's Bakery, there was a gravel parking area with a small concrete building at the rear. This was where, during my later Hillsboro years, I used to pick up my papers to deliver on my paper route. I was the only paperboy there who wasn't from the neighborhood. I had to drive there. The other paperboys weren't sure what to make of me. I was quiet and so I didn't give them many clues about whether I had anything going for me or not.
Among themselves, they were a rowdy lot, always ganging up on one or another of their number and throwing him into the rain barrel, outside the building. They never tried to throw me in the barrel, not even in fun.
One time, I remember, one of the boys came up and handed me a small paper sack, while the others looked on. I didn't know that they had put some little whiz-bang device in the bag. I looked inside and the thing snapped up at me. I looked up and the guy who had given me the bag said to the others, "See? I told you!" I said, "What?" and the guy said, "I told them you wouldn't jump!"
Back then, I figured they thought I was the kind of guy who didn't jump. Today, I realize that they held me in respect because my father was Rinkey Blumen.
We went out to eat, once or twice a month, at Cayce's. In the winter, we would get there just as it was getting dark, and, through the big plate glass window near the door, everything inside looked warm and bright. Up front, as you went in, there was a bar where you could get, mainly, beer. And I remember, on the walls, there were these dazzling advertising displays for Budweiser which showed pictures of sport fishing, but with cutouts and a light bulb turning behind, so that the display seemed to sparkle and move - the trout rose magically to the fisherman's fly.
Besides Cayce, who mostly presided over things from behind the bar, there were two waiters, one quiet and the other sharp with the banter, who worked there for years. We got to know them pretty well and they would always kid around with us kids.
When Cayce retired to a life of fishing, he gave the restaurant to the two waiters. They were thrilled to have an opportunity to run a restaurant of their own. We went there several times after they took over, but it wasn't the same - they always met us formally at the door and escorted us to our table with great finesse. There was no more kidding around. I liked them better when they were waiters.
Becker's Bakery was the best bakery in town. Quiet, smiling Mrs. Frensley became an institution there to several generations, both before and after us. Betty and I discovered, fairly early in our relationship, that we had Becker's in common. I liked the Petit Fours and she liked the little pink, green and yellow cookies, shaped like fleurettes, that weren't too sweet, but went all crumbly in your mouth.
Between Cayce's and Becker's Bakery, there was a gravel parking area with a small concrete building at the rear. This was where, during my later Hillsboro years, I used to pick up my papers to deliver on my paper route. I was the only paperboy there who wasn't from the neighborhood. I had to drive there. The other paperboys weren't sure what to make of me. I was quiet and so I didn't give them many clues about whether I had anything going for me or not.
Among themselves, they were a rowdy lot, always ganging up on one or another of their number and throwing him into the rain barrel, outside the building. They never tried to throw me in the barrel, not even in fun.
One time, I remember, one of the boys came up and handed me a small paper sack, while the others looked on. I didn't know that they had put some little whiz-bang device in the bag. I looked inside and the thing snapped up at me. I looked up and the guy who had given me the bag said to the others, "See? I told you!" I said, "What?" and the guy said, "I told them you wouldn't jump!"
Back then, I figured they thought I was the kind of guy who didn't jump. Today, I realize that they held me in respect because my father was Rinkey Blumen.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Roads' End
I told Betty about giving Roy Ackland a ride and what he said about wanting to go to Hollywood. I compared him to Charlton Heston and so we decided to call him "Royton Ackland" after that. Actually, we didn't talk about him all that much.
But, somehow, word came around that Royton had gotten himself in a movie, so we determined to go see it. It was called "The Alamo" with John Wayne. Roy didn't have a big part. In the credits (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/fullcredits#cast) , he is listed as "Ray Ackland", one of Travis' men. Travis had several men.
We went to the movie and searched for him. He was in one scene, near the end. He was the kid who blew the bugle. It wasn't much, but it was pretty exciting, because after that all hell broke loose.
But, somehow, word came around that Royton had gotten himself in a movie, so we determined to go see it. It was called "The Alamo" with John Wayne. Roy didn't have a big part. In the credits (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053580/fullcredits#cast) , he is listed as "Ray Ackland", one of Travis' men. Travis had several men.
We went to the movie and searched for him. He was in one scene, near the end. He was the kid who blew the bugle. It wasn't much, but it was pretty exciting, because after that all hell broke loose.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Roads
What were we doing from April 2 to April 22, 1951?
I don't know. Memory doesn't work that way. There's no book that you can go to and open to 4/2/1951, to find out. You have to think of something close to it and then construct the memory with help from external signposts, like calendars. I remember that 1951 was the year of the Great Blizzard in Nashville. Betty remembers that she was in sixth grade when the blizzard hit. So, from April 2 to April 22, 1951, we were in sixth grade.
In New York City, during those same three weeks, Jack Kerouac, working like a crazy man, wrote out a whole novel that he had been thinking about for years. He got a lot of paper and taped the sheets together, end to end, so he could type without stopping to put new pages in. He typed it out in one long paragraph. When he got through, he wrote his friend, Neal, in San Francisco, and said: "I've telled all the road, now." He said the paper it was written on looked like a road, stretching out from his typewriter. He called his book "On the Road." It was about getting out and going somewhere - anywhere - without turning around or stopping.
We didn't know anything about that. But the idea of getting out and going somewhere caught people's fancies. It seemed a particularly American way of thinking in the fifties. You didn't have to be a beatnik to want to do it. Ran Pickell and Wally Wolfe got out one summer and biked across the country and got their pictures in the National Geographic. They were probably influenced more by Open Road for Boys than "On the Road."
Once, in the summer of our Junior year, my mother was driving down Hillsboro Road, near the Presbyterian Church, and I was in the car. At the corner of Hillsboro Road and Stokes Lane, she stopped to pick up a hitchhiker. It was Roy Ackland.
My mother asked him what he was going to do with his life. He said he was going to go to Hollywood and be a stuntman.
I don't know. Memory doesn't work that way. There's no book that you can go to and open to 4/2/1951, to find out. You have to think of something close to it and then construct the memory with help from external signposts, like calendars. I remember that 1951 was the year of the Great Blizzard in Nashville. Betty remembers that she was in sixth grade when the blizzard hit. So, from April 2 to April 22, 1951, we were in sixth grade.
In New York City, during those same three weeks, Jack Kerouac, working like a crazy man, wrote out a whole novel that he had been thinking about for years. He got a lot of paper and taped the sheets together, end to end, so he could type without stopping to put new pages in. He typed it out in one long paragraph. When he got through, he wrote his friend, Neal, in San Francisco, and said: "I've telled all the road, now." He said the paper it was written on looked like a road, stretching out from his typewriter. He called his book "On the Road." It was about getting out and going somewhere - anywhere - without turning around or stopping.
We didn't know anything about that. But the idea of getting out and going somewhere caught people's fancies. It seemed a particularly American way of thinking in the fifties. You didn't have to be a beatnik to want to do it. Ran Pickell and Wally Wolfe got out one summer and biked across the country and got their pictures in the National Geographic. They were probably influenced more by Open Road for Boys than "On the Road."
Once, in the summer of our Junior year, my mother was driving down Hillsboro Road, near the Presbyterian Church, and I was in the car. At the corner of Hillsboro Road and Stokes Lane, she stopped to pick up a hitchhiker. It was Roy Ackland.
My mother asked him what he was going to do with his life. He said he was going to go to Hollywood and be a stuntman.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Annual Report
In March, 2006, I undertook this blog with no clear idea of what to make of it. For the first year, Betty and I were the only readers, and she didn't like it. But I kept doing it. Then reunion planning started up and I heard from Alice Ann. By then I had one real reader, and there were soon to be a few more. By any statistical measure, I am humbled by the experience. During the past month, I had twelve different readers, and the truth is, I'm tickled by that. That level of readership places us all securely in the long tail of human endeavors and I can't think of a better place to be.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Rest of Her Life
Four years before Rachel was born, we had decided on her name. We had gone to a black-and-white English movie about a little girl and boy. The girl was named Rachel. Betty said, "If we ever have a girl, I want to name her Rachel."
I thought that was fine. At the time, the idea that we would ever have a girl had not yet hit me. In my family, there were five boys and no girls. I knew nothing about girls.
Four years later, I started learning. Rachel was an easy child; she slept all night through from the start. And she was pleasant - laughing and smiling when she was six weeks old.
And she was a whizzer with words. When she was nine months old, she gained renown in the neighborhood for saying "hippopotamus" in front of witnesses. People came over just to see her do that and she always obliged them. There was a rumor that she wouldn't talk unless you gave her a quarter, but I don't believe it.
Over the years, I learned that girls are different from boys, although Rachel and I always thought the same things were funny. She has a little sense of humor that's all her own.
When she hit high school in the early eighties, the world had changed from the one we knew. Her high school generation was the first one to go public with obscenity - the autograph pages in her annuals can not be examined in mixed company, even today. On a more positive note, her generation adopted the word "heinous" as a universal adjective, indicating a general state of opprobrium.
Those were heady days. Then came graduation and, following that, the yawning maw of the rest of her life. Rachel showed no particular inclination or enthusiasm for going to college. Betty was sympathetic to her feelings, but I was adamant that she would go.
Rachel said, "What's so important about going to college?"
I said, "It's important because, if you don't go, then for the rest of your life, you'll wonder what it was all about."
"That's all?"
"That's it."
"Why can't I just get a job?"
"Do you want to work at McDonald's for the rest of your life?"
"Heinous."
So, it was settled. She went to Georgia for a year and then finished at Georgia State, magna cum laude. And she hasn't wondered about it since. But there was still the matter of the rest of her life.
The summer before her graduation, I took her to CDC and helped her get a job. On the way home, I asked her how it felt to be employed. She was reading the qualifications on her job description. She said, "I didn't need to go to college to get this job."
But she enjoyed working in an office. Still, it didn't seem like something she would want to do for the rest of her life. Then she met this guy. All during high school and college, she had not shown much interest in any particular boy. So I was surprised, when Betty told me, one evening: "Rachel has met somebody." He was Rob Merritt, a Health Scientist at CDC.
They hit it off. They were suprised to learn that, even though they grew up in different places, they thought the same things were heinous. She brought him home to meet us and he took her home to meet his parents. His father said that he never thought a son of his could ever attract the interest of a girl as fine as Rachel.
So, when everyone had been informed, they got married. Now, they have three children - William, 13, Andrew, 9, and Molly, 7. And for the rest of her life, Rachel hasn't wondered about the rest of her life.
I thought that was fine. At the time, the idea that we would ever have a girl had not yet hit me. In my family, there were five boys and no girls. I knew nothing about girls.
Four years later, I started learning. Rachel was an easy child; she slept all night through from the start. And she was pleasant - laughing and smiling when she was six weeks old.
And she was a whizzer with words. When she was nine months old, she gained renown in the neighborhood for saying "hippopotamus" in front of witnesses. People came over just to see her do that and she always obliged them. There was a rumor that she wouldn't talk unless you gave her a quarter, but I don't believe it.
Over the years, I learned that girls are different from boys, although Rachel and I always thought the same things were funny. She has a little sense of humor that's all her own.
When she hit high school in the early eighties, the world had changed from the one we knew. Her high school generation was the first one to go public with obscenity - the autograph pages in her annuals can not be examined in mixed company, even today. On a more positive note, her generation adopted the word "heinous" as a universal adjective, indicating a general state of opprobrium.
Those were heady days. Then came graduation and, following that, the yawning maw of the rest of her life. Rachel showed no particular inclination or enthusiasm for going to college. Betty was sympathetic to her feelings, but I was adamant that she would go.
Rachel said, "What's so important about going to college?"
I said, "It's important because, if you don't go, then for the rest of your life, you'll wonder what it was all about."
"That's all?"
"That's it."
"Why can't I just get a job?"
"Do you want to work at McDonald's for the rest of your life?"
"Heinous."
So, it was settled. She went to Georgia for a year and then finished at Georgia State, magna cum laude. And she hasn't wondered about it since. But there was still the matter of the rest of her life.
The summer before her graduation, I took her to CDC and helped her get a job. On the way home, I asked her how it felt to be employed. She was reading the qualifications on her job description. She said, "I didn't need to go to college to get this job."
But she enjoyed working in an office. Still, it didn't seem like something she would want to do for the rest of her life. Then she met this guy. All during high school and college, she had not shown much interest in any particular boy. So I was surprised, when Betty told me, one evening: "Rachel has met somebody." He was Rob Merritt, a Health Scientist at CDC.They hit it off. They were suprised to learn that, even though they grew up in different places, they thought the same things were heinous. She brought him home to meet us and he took her home to meet his parents. His father said that he never thought a son of his could ever attract the interest of a girl as fine as Rachel.
So, when everyone had been informed, they got married. Now, they have three children - William, 13, Andrew, 9, and Molly, 7. And for the rest of her life, Rachel hasn't wondered about the rest of her life.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Yonge Sonne
Tristram Shandy's father had a theory of names, regarding one's offspring, which for me boiled down to the idea that it's good to have a good name, and bad to have a bad one. Before our first was born, we had several conversations on this topic.
If it were up to me-
It is up to you-
Well then, if it were up to me, and we have a boy, I would name him after Bertrand Russell.
Bertrand?
No, Russell.
I thought Russell was a fine name, and still do. Betty agreed, so we went with that. And it was a boy. But Betty trumped my effort at naming with her choice of an epithet, as she was being wheeled out of the delivery room, still a little giddy from the ordeal. As I took her hand, she managed a sleepy smile and whispered, "He's a yonge sonne."
I didn't get it. Later, she reminded me of Senior English when we had to learn the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales and recite them in the original Middle English...
...Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye....
And so it stuck, as one of the several names by which we refer to Russell. But, since Middle English is not well understood, these days, I prefer the American rendition: I call him Son.
Anyway, he grew up and was a good boy. When he was about six years old, we discovered that, through some strange chance, he had been born an engineer. We had given him a train set for Christmas, complete with transformer, tracks and smoke tablets, and later we found that he had taken the transformer apart and rewired it, for some purpose of his own.
Then, when he was twelve, he came home from school one day with a book he had found in the library. It was a technical manual, describing all the inputs and outputs of the pins on the 8080 Central Processing Unit. He read it every day and soon knew it by heart. We took him to the doctor to see if anything could be done, but the doctor said, rejoice, he's wired for double-E.
So we sent him to Georgia Tech to get the education he needed for that. And soon he was waiting for offers of work to come in. But, for a week or so, after graduation, there weren't any.
He said, "I'm a loser."
But then, the next day, IBM called with a career in designing computer chips, which was just what he wanted to do. It all worked out.
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But he wasn't through: he married one of those Nashville Portnoy girls. They have two boys, Matthew and Jared, 12 and 8, both born engineers. Lynn had a difficult delivery with the first and was worn out and recuperating the first few weeks. Russell took over the task of dealing with child and household at the same time and managed them both handily, to our amazement. He bathed, dressed, and fed baby, and changed dirty diapers 24 hours a day. He washed dishes with one hand, while holding the baby in his other arm like a little football. We couldn't believe it. There's nothing in the engineer's manual about dealing with delicate little creatures. Or maybe there is: when I complimented him on his parenting skills, he shrugged it off with an observation. He said, "Even computer chips need a lot of care."
If it were up to me-
It is up to you-
Well then, if it were up to me, and we have a boy, I would name him after Bertrand Russell.
Bertrand?
No, Russell.
I thought Russell was a fine name, and still do. Betty agreed, so we went with that. And it was a boy. But Betty trumped my effort at naming with her choice of an epithet, as she was being wheeled out of the delivery room, still a little giddy from the ordeal. As I took her hand, she managed a sleepy smile and whispered, "He's a yonge sonne."
I didn't get it. Later, she reminded me of Senior English when we had to learn the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales and recite them in the original Middle English...
...Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye....
And so it stuck, as one of the several names by which we refer to Russell. But, since Middle English is not well understood, these days, I prefer the American rendition: I call him Son.
Anyway, he grew up and was a good boy. When he was about six years old, we discovered that, through some strange chance, he had been born an engineer. We had given him a train set for Christmas, complete with transformer, tracks and smoke tablets, and later we found that he had taken the transformer apart and rewired it, for some purpose of his own.
Then, when he was twelve, he came home from school one day with a book he had found in the library. It was a technical manual, describing all the inputs and outputs of the pins on the 8080 Central Processing Unit. He read it every day and soon knew it by heart. We took him to the doctor to see if anything could be done, but the doctor said, rejoice, he's wired for double-E.
So we sent him to Georgia Tech to get the education he needed for that. And soon he was waiting for offers of work to come in. But, for a week or so, after graduation, there weren't any.
He said, "I'm a loser."
But then, the next day, IBM called with a career in designing computer chips, which was just what he wanted to do. It all worked out.
.JPG)
But he wasn't through: he married one of those Nashville Portnoy girls. They have two boys, Matthew and Jared, 12 and 8, both born engineers. Lynn had a difficult delivery with the first and was worn out and recuperating the first few weeks. Russell took over the task of dealing with child and household at the same time and managed them both handily, to our amazement. He bathed, dressed, and fed baby, and changed dirty diapers 24 hours a day. He washed dishes with one hand, while holding the baby in his other arm like a little football. We couldn't believe it. There's nothing in the engineer's manual about dealing with delicate little creatures. Or maybe there is: when I complimented him on his parenting skills, he shrugged it off with an observation. He said, "Even computer chips need a lot of care."
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Before it's too late
The word went out: the man was coming to town. This might be the last time, they said. He can't live forever.
Saturday, they started coming in. They came in ships and boats. They came in planes, trains and automobiles. They came in, biking triking and hitch-hiking. They steamed and streamed from every direction.
There were the aged and the infirm, the halt and the lame, the sore in spirit, ancient faces and bad cases, old codgers and draft dodgers, long-time slackers, hackers and safecrackers, double dealers and ballerinas.
They came to pay their respects. To see what kind of moves he had left. They didn't have to wait long.
He showed. With his men behind him, he started it up and it was loud. Everybody grinned and turned up their hearing aids. He labored long and hard, and then he was gone.
Everybody streamed out, gratified. Going across the parking lot, I passed an old mariner with a plastic cup of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had on a T shirt that said, "I can't march anymore." His hair in back hung in a little ring around his bald head like a little curtain down to his shoulders.
When he saw me, he said, "It wasn't too late! I hope I'll get to see him again!"
I said, "I'm sure he'll be back."
The old grizzler said, "I hope I'll be back!"
So do we all, brother.
Saturday, they started coming in. They came in ships and boats. They came in planes, trains and automobiles. They came in, biking triking and hitch-hiking. They steamed and streamed from every direction.
There were the aged and the infirm, the halt and the lame, the sore in spirit, ancient faces and bad cases, old codgers and draft dodgers, long-time slackers, hackers and safecrackers, double dealers and ballerinas.
They came to pay their respects. To see what kind of moves he had left. They didn't have to wait long.
He showed. With his men behind him, he started it up and it was loud. Everybody grinned and turned up their hearing aids. He labored long and hard, and then he was gone.
Everybody streamed out, gratified. Going across the parking lot, I passed an old mariner with a plastic cup of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had on a T shirt that said, "I can't march anymore." His hair in back hung in a little ring around his bald head like a little curtain down to his shoulders.
When he saw me, he said, "It wasn't too late! I hope I'll get to see him again!"
I said, "I'm sure he'll be back."
The old grizzler said, "I hope I'll be back!"
So do we all, brother.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Reunion Autobiography Blues
I think my reunion autobiography is pretty funny. What do you think?
I think you didn't mention either of our children by name. Or their children.
You told me you didn't want their names on the Internet.
That wasn't the Internet - it was Patsy Bradley.
I want to make it right: I will dedicate a couple of blogs to our children. I will mention them by name.
Oh, no.
I think you didn't mention either of our children by name. Or their children.
You told me you didn't want their names on the Internet.
That wasn't the Internet - it was Patsy Bradley.
I want to make it right: I will dedicate a couple of blogs to our children. I will mention them by name.
Oh, no.
Monday, September 10, 2007
My Kingdom for that Picture
Betty went to Burton and I went to Stokes. We didn't know anybody who went to Woodmont. So, at Hillsboro, she kept seeing Burton People and I kept seeing Stokes people and we never saw any Woodmont people. It was like we were on these tectonic plates that moved around and bumped into each other, but never really came together.
I went to Woodmont once, after school. It was early fall and I remember being out on the basketball court. I had a camera with me. I cannot imagine why I would have been carrying a camera around, but I know I had it because I took a picture with it.
I took a picture of Cam Talley and Trish Champion. Both standing together, in angora sweaters and sheath skirts, holding their books in their arms, and smiling. I pointed my kodak at them and took their picture. I can't believe I had the guts to do that. Cam, I had blown my chance with in first grade, and I never even spoke to Trish Champion until we were both in our forties. But somehow, through gestures and signs, I guess, I conveyed to them both that I wanted to take their picture.
I kept that picture for forty years. It was in a big cardboard box in the attic with hundreds of other pictures, taken over the years, but I knew where it was. One day, Betty told me that she had thrown out all the old pictures in that old box, except those of our immediate family. She knew what she was doing.
But I still have that picture in my mind. It was late afternoon and the sun was behind them, low in the sky. And there were leaves on the ground.
I went to Woodmont once, after school. It was early fall and I remember being out on the basketball court. I had a camera with me. I cannot imagine why I would have been carrying a camera around, but I know I had it because I took a picture with it.
I took a picture of Cam Talley and Trish Champion. Both standing together, in angora sweaters and sheath skirts, holding their books in their arms, and smiling. I pointed my kodak at them and took their picture. I can't believe I had the guts to do that. Cam, I had blown my chance with in first grade, and I never even spoke to Trish Champion until we were both in our forties. But somehow, through gestures and signs, I guess, I conveyed to them both that I wanted to take their picture.
I kept that picture for forty years. It was in a big cardboard box in the attic with hundreds of other pictures, taken over the years, but I knew where it was. One day, Betty told me that she had thrown out all the old pictures in that old box, except those of our immediate family. She knew what she was doing.
But I still have that picture in my mind. It was late afternoon and the sun was behind them, low in the sky. And there were leaves on the ground.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Civics Lesson
In the fall of 1956, we were brand-new seniors. And, throughout the land, a presidential election was coming to a head. At Hillsboro, we had a mock election. It meant nothing to the national body politic, but it kept our minds off studying, for a while.
It was Eisenhower against Stevenson. People started making signs and taking sides. The first inkling I had that it was going to be anything more than that came when I ran into Jeter, coming out of Study Hall. He pressed a little card into my hand. The card said:
Jeter grinned and said, "We'd appreciate your support." That afternoon, four other guys gave me the same card. The last one gave me a stack and asked me to hand them out.
Before long, word spread through the school that certain scurrilous miscreants were trying to turn the election into a three-way race. Indignation was raised in the halls and there were calls to have those responsible ousted from the county. Other high-minded individuals countered that the injection of a third party was a positive example of democracy at the grass roots level.
Reason prevailed and write-in votes were allowed for the additional candidate. The campaigns then proceeded with vigor until the mock-election was held, the week before the real election.
It took a couple of days for the votes to be tallied. Then, with some fanfare, a special assembly was convened to announce the results. As expected, Eisenhower won handily and Stevenson came in second. T. Coleman Andrews came in third with a total of 0.00 votes.
After the assembly, a meeting of Andrews' supporters was hastily called in the second floor boy's room. I was permitted to attend because I had handed out the most cards. The main discussion centered around the mathematical impossibility that no votes had been cast for their candidate. Jeter said, "I personally voted for him 17 times." The others agreed. When the number of times that everybody had voted was tallied, it was clear that several hundred votes had been spirited away. Stolen, as it were.
Outrage ran rampant in the john. Throats became hoarse with a general call to accuse the election commission of fraud and demand a recount. Just as things were getting ugly, Jeter came forward and said, "Wait a minute - we can't do this."
"Why not?" everybody wanted to know.
Jeter paused for effect, then said, in tones of civic virtue, "It would tear the school apart."
He was immediately pummeled by the whole group.
The rest is history, or something like it.
It was Eisenhower against Stevenson. People started making signs and taking sides. The first inkling I had that it was going to be anything more than that came when I ran into Jeter, coming out of Study Hall. He pressed a little card into my hand. The card said:
Vote Early and Vote Often!
for
T. Coleman Andrews
Jeter grinned and said, "We'd appreciate your support." That afternoon, four other guys gave me the same card. The last one gave me a stack and asked me to hand them out.
Before long, word spread through the school that certain scurrilous miscreants were trying to turn the election into a three-way race. Indignation was raised in the halls and there were calls to have those responsible ousted from the county. Other high-minded individuals countered that the injection of a third party was a positive example of democracy at the grass roots level.
Reason prevailed and write-in votes were allowed for the additional candidate. The campaigns then proceeded with vigor until the mock-election was held, the week before the real election.
It took a couple of days for the votes to be tallied. Then, with some fanfare, a special assembly was convened to announce the results. As expected, Eisenhower won handily and Stevenson came in second. T. Coleman Andrews came in third with a total of 0.00 votes.
After the assembly, a meeting of Andrews' supporters was hastily called in the second floor boy's room. I was permitted to attend because I had handed out the most cards. The main discussion centered around the mathematical impossibility that no votes had been cast for their candidate. Jeter said, "I personally voted for him 17 times." The others agreed. When the number of times that everybody had voted was tallied, it was clear that several hundred votes had been spirited away. Stolen, as it were.
Outrage ran rampant in the john. Throats became hoarse with a general call to accuse the election commission of fraud and demand a recount. Just as things were getting ugly, Jeter came forward and said, "Wait a minute - we can't do this."
"Why not?" everybody wanted to know.
Jeter paused for effect, then said, in tones of civic virtue, "It would tear the school apart."
He was immediately pummeled by the whole group.
The rest is history, or something like it.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Funny Stories
If you gotta play at garden parties
I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang
I'd rather drive a truck
I'm thinking I've run this reunion thing dry. What kind of person goes around telling funny stories about people he knew fifty years ago? Our high school class is just a tiny sliver of the people we've known in our lives. And when we were at Hillsboro, a lot of the people we hung with were in classes other than ours, anyway. I'm thinking that I might want to talk about some of them, sometime. And I've known a lot of people who've never heard of John Koen. I might want to get sentimental about some of them, too.
Just a little earlier tonight, I started thinking about a guy I used to know at work. He was five or ten years my senior; big, tall and hulking, but also an incredibly gentle human being. I never saw him without a smile on his face, but he always seemed sad to me. His name was Tom Leonard.
I decided, just now, to google his name, with "CDC" as a qualifier. The first hit showed a URL for a CDC site and this citation: "There has been no official Tree planting for Tom Leonard." That didn't sound good. I went to the page and, sure enough, it was all about the suicide of Tom Leonard. But, on closer examination, the Tom Leonard who committed suicide was a teenage boy. It was a wrenching site, but it wasn't the Tom Leonard that I knew.
The funny thing is, if it had been the Tom Leonard I knew, I wouldn't have been surprised.
I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang
I'd rather drive a truck
I'm thinking I've run this reunion thing dry. What kind of person goes around telling funny stories about people he knew fifty years ago? Our high school class is just a tiny sliver of the people we've known in our lives. And when we were at Hillsboro, a lot of the people we hung with were in classes other than ours, anyway. I'm thinking that I might want to talk about some of them, sometime. And I've known a lot of people who've never heard of John Koen. I might want to get sentimental about some of them, too.
Just a little earlier tonight, I started thinking about a guy I used to know at work. He was five or ten years my senior; big, tall and hulking, but also an incredibly gentle human being. I never saw him without a smile on his face, but he always seemed sad to me. His name was Tom Leonard.
I decided, just now, to google his name, with "CDC" as a qualifier. The first hit showed a URL for a CDC site and this citation: "There has been no official Tree planting for Tom Leonard." That didn't sound good. I went to the page and, sure enough, it was all about the suicide of Tom Leonard. But, on closer examination, the Tom Leonard who committed suicide was a teenage boy. It was a wrenching site, but it wasn't the Tom Leonard that I knew.
The funny thing is, if it had been the Tom Leonard I knew, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Golden Words
Oh Shenandoah
I long to hear you
Far away
You rolling river!
Oh Shenandoah
I long to see you
Away
I'm bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
I long to hear you
Far away
You rolling river!
Oh Shenandoah
I long to see you
Away
I'm bound away
Across the wide Missouri.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
16th Avenue
A lot of lives were changed
down on that little one-way street
I enjoyed being able to sit down at the reunion, this time. But just when I got comfortable, I heard the M.C. introduce Bergen White. Bergen White is, arguably, the most illustrious member of our class, bar none. His accomplishments are huge. I admire him greatly.
So, when I heard his name mentioned and saw him walk forth into the light, I began the process of rising from my chair, anticipating the inevitable ovation. About midway into my rise, I became aware that there wasn't any ovation. Just average crowd noise. It's not easy for an old man to change direction when he's into his rise, but I managed to sit back down before anybody noticed.
But I tell you what: that was pitiful. We should have given that man the ovation he was due. Why? Because he went down to the other end of 16th Avenue and got his life changed.
There were others, too, that we knew: Buzz Cason (remember the "Casuals"?) and Bobby Russell. Even Vance Bulla got his face on a record album.
Bobby was probably the best known. In the fall of 1958, word started going around that he and some others were getting a record deal. I didn't believe it, but I checked it out and there it was:
down on that little one-way street
I enjoyed being able to sit down at the reunion, this time. But just when I got comfortable, I heard the M.C. introduce Bergen White. Bergen White is, arguably, the most illustrious member of our class, bar none. His accomplishments are huge. I admire him greatly.
So, when I heard his name mentioned and saw him walk forth into the light, I began the process of rising from my chair, anticipating the inevitable ovation. About midway into my rise, I became aware that there wasn't any ovation. Just average crowd noise. It's not easy for an old man to change direction when he's into his rise, but I managed to sit back down before anybody noticed.
But I tell you what: that was pitiful. We should have given that man the ovation he was due. Why? Because he went down to the other end of 16th Avenue and got his life changed.
There were others, too, that we knew: Buzz Cason (remember the "Casuals"?) and Bobby Russell. Even Vance Bulla got his face on a record album.
Bobby was probably the best known. In the fall of 1958, word started going around that he and some others were getting a record deal. I didn't believe it, but I checked it out and there it was:
I bought the record. It was pretty good. But after that, I didn't hear anything more about him. I guess, like everybody else in that part of town, he wanted to write songs. There's thirteen-hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville, but there's about a zillion song writers. Even John Robins and I went down there one day with a tape. But Bobby really did it. He earned everybody's respect.
He was a member of the Felsted Class of 1958. The other artists recorded by Felsted that year were:
Steve Schulte
Jiv-A-Tones
Andy Anderson
Mickey Michaels
David Orrell
LaVerne Stovall
Harley Botts
Bobby was the Valedictorian of that class. Flat out.
. . . .
Then one night in some empty room
Where no curtains ever hung,
like a miracle, some golden words rolled
Off of someone's tongue...
Thursday, August 9, 2007
A Great Notion
I saw Peggy Lauderdale Shackleford briefly at the reunion and then, later, we exchanged E-Mails. Peggy had a good idea: she said there ought to be a way to keep everybody in touch with each other over the years.
That got me thinking. E-Mail is great and we've made good use of it this time around, but it's neither efficient nor practical: with E-Mail alone, keeping everybody in the loop means that we all have to let everybody else know when our E-Mail addresses change, and we all have to keep our own Address Books up-to-date. It's either that or a few people end up doing all the work, like the people on our Reunion Committee. But, really, we want to give those folks a rest, after the great job they did on the reunion.
We need something that goes beyond E-Mail. Something that is designed to maintain connections between people. Something that does all the housekeeping, leaving us free to get in, find out what's going on, and get out. We need a Social Network.
There are such things. MySpace and Facebook are the best known examples, and of the two, Facebook is the best. Bill Gates and Jim Cramer have both joined Facebook.
The idea behind Facebook is simple. It's an elegantly wrought website that you can join. When you join, you get a Profile where you can store information about yourself, pictures of the grandkids, stuff like that. Stuff that no one else can see unless you let them. You can also exchange messages with other people, like E-Mail, except that you don't have to know anybody's address. You just have to be associated with them, in Facebook, as a friend or member of the same group. And it's all free.
If this sounds like a commercial, it is.
The catch is, everybody has to join Facebook. Actually, not everybody - just those who want to keep up with everybody who wants to be kept up with. Let it not be said that the Class of '57 eschews individualism and the right to be left alone. But I would say, if it works for Bill Gates, what have you got to lose?
I joined Facebook. Then I invited Betty to join, in the hope of staying out of Divorcebook. The invitation went to Betty's E-Mail address, and contained a link that took her straight to the Facebook Registration Page. When she joined, she accepted my invitation to associate and we were able to agree on a relationship, which we both designated as "married". As I understand it, that prevents us from having that relationship with anyone else in Facebook.
Then I put up pictures of three of my grandchildren. It was as easy as sending them through E-Mail. But the nice thing about it is, you don't have to scatter your pictures all over the Internet; you just put them up in one place, and then all those who have a connection with you can come to see them whenever they want to. If you let them.
Next, I created a group and called it "Hillsboro Class of 1957". I invited Betty to join this group. Another invitation went out, this time to her Facebook Profile, since she was a member of Facebook by then, and she accepted. Flush with success, I then invited Peggy to join and she did. As they joined, I made them both Administrators, which allows them to invite others to join the group, too. So Peggy invited Gayle Bulleit Moses and Alice Ann Taylor Parks. Now, when Gayle and Alice Ann get a spare moment, they're going to start inviting people, and so on. When this gets going, the law of geometric progression and my calculations indicate that the whole class should be registered in Facebook in about 3 seconds. The Internet is scary. But, in Facebook, everybody knows your name. And the idea is, any news, good or bad, from anybody, gets posted to the "Hillsboro Class of 1957" group. And everybody goes there to find out what's going on.
Wait for an invitation. Then be there.
That got me thinking. E-Mail is great and we've made good use of it this time around, but it's neither efficient nor practical: with E-Mail alone, keeping everybody in the loop means that we all have to let everybody else know when our E-Mail addresses change, and we all have to keep our own Address Books up-to-date. It's either that or a few people end up doing all the work, like the people on our Reunion Committee. But, really, we want to give those folks a rest, after the great job they did on the reunion.
We need something that goes beyond E-Mail. Something that is designed to maintain connections between people. Something that does all the housekeeping, leaving us free to get in, find out what's going on, and get out. We need a Social Network.
There are such things. MySpace and Facebook are the best known examples, and of the two, Facebook is the best. Bill Gates and Jim Cramer have both joined Facebook.
The idea behind Facebook is simple. It's an elegantly wrought website that you can join. When you join, you get a Profile where you can store information about yourself, pictures of the grandkids, stuff like that. Stuff that no one else can see unless you let them. You can also exchange messages with other people, like E-Mail, except that you don't have to know anybody's address. You just have to be associated with them, in Facebook, as a friend or member of the same group. And it's all free.
If this sounds like a commercial, it is.
The catch is, everybody has to join Facebook. Actually, not everybody - just those who want to keep up with everybody who wants to be kept up with. Let it not be said that the Class of '57 eschews individualism and the right to be left alone. But I would say, if it works for Bill Gates, what have you got to lose?
I joined Facebook. Then I invited Betty to join, in the hope of staying out of Divorcebook. The invitation went to Betty's E-Mail address, and contained a link that took her straight to the Facebook Registration Page. When she joined, she accepted my invitation to associate and we were able to agree on a relationship, which we both designated as "married". As I understand it, that prevents us from having that relationship with anyone else in Facebook.
Then I put up pictures of three of my grandchildren. It was as easy as sending them through E-Mail. But the nice thing about it is, you don't have to scatter your pictures all over the Internet; you just put them up in one place, and then all those who have a connection with you can come to see them whenever they want to. If you let them.
Next, I created a group and called it "Hillsboro Class of 1957". I invited Betty to join this group. Another invitation went out, this time to her Facebook Profile, since she was a member of Facebook by then, and she accepted. Flush with success, I then invited Peggy to join and she did. As they joined, I made them both Administrators, which allows them to invite others to join the group, too. So Peggy invited Gayle Bulleit Moses and Alice Ann Taylor Parks. Now, when Gayle and Alice Ann get a spare moment, they're going to start inviting people, and so on. When this gets going, the law of geometric progression and my calculations indicate that the whole class should be registered in Facebook in about 3 seconds. The Internet is scary. But, in Facebook, everybody knows your name. And the idea is, any news, good or bad, from anybody, gets posted to the "Hillsboro Class of 1957" group. And everybody goes there to find out what's going on.
Wait for an invitation. Then be there.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Remembering the Crow
It was the summer before we started Hillsboro. The days were balmy and we were rising freshmen. We didn't know that schools could burn down. One day, a bunch of us gathered at Charlotte Kinnard's house for an afternoon of unsupervised slow dancing to records. The funny thing is, I don't remember any of the other girls there, besides Charlotte. But I do know that Rick Drewry was there.
Rick remembers that, at one point, he went outside and sat down in a swing that was part of a child's swing set. Soon after that, a big, black crow flew down and sat on the top of the swing frame. The crow looked down at Rick and said, "Hello!"
Rick was astonished. A crow had never spoken to him before. He told Charlotte what happened and how it had startled him. Charlotte said that anybody would have been startled by that.
I wish that I had been out there. I could have saved Rick half a century of wondering about it.
I knew this crow. His name was Sam. He was the crow in our family. He lived in a chicken wire cage, the size of a phone booth, that my mother had gotten somebody to build in our yard.
There was a latch on the cage door and Sam figured out how to pull it up and let himself out. So he could fly free whenever he wanted to. But mainly, he followed my brothers and me around. He was often seen at Stokes School, perched on the back corner of the building and making a lot of noise, when any of us were out at recess.
So I’m sure he just followed me down to Charlotte’s house to see what I was up to, and maybe to see if there was anybody there that he could meet.
Rick remembers that, at one point, he went outside and sat down in a swing that was part of a child's swing set. Soon after that, a big, black crow flew down and sat on the top of the swing frame. The crow looked down at Rick and said, "Hello!"
Rick was astonished. A crow had never spoken to him before. He told Charlotte what happened and how it had startled him. Charlotte said that anybody would have been startled by that.
I wish that I had been out there. I could have saved Rick half a century of wondering about it.
I knew this crow. His name was Sam. He was the crow in our family. He lived in a chicken wire cage, the size of a phone booth, that my mother had gotten somebody to build in our yard.
There was a latch on the cage door and Sam figured out how to pull it up and let himself out. So he could fly free whenever he wanted to. But mainly, he followed my brothers and me around. He was often seen at Stokes School, perched on the back corner of the building and making a lot of noise, when any of us were out at recess.
So I’m sure he just followed me down to Charlotte’s house to see what I was up to, and maybe to see if there was anybody there that he could meet.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Good Lew, Good Ralph
Betty doesn't like the Internet and uses as little of it as possible. But when she found out, a few years back, that you could look up people's phone numbers on it, she decided to give it a whirl. The first person she wanted to look up was Kent Washburn.
Kent Washburn, along with Ralph Sandler and Lewis White, used to ride on her bus. They were all a year behind us, but Betty thought that they treated her with just the right amount of awe and respect due a senior. Especially Kent. She recalls that he, alone of the three, actually talked to her. The other two were just along for the laughs. She told me that Kent had names for them: they were "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph". Every time he talked about them, it was always "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph".
I said, "What are you going to do if you find his phone number?"
She said, "I'm going to call him up."
But Yahoo! didn't know him. She was disappointed. I thought I detected a touch of maternal feeling in her concern for the younger man. But I'm probably overstating it - it doesn't take much, really, to wonder what might have happened to Good Lew and Good Ralph and Good Kent.
Kent Washburn, along with Ralph Sandler and Lewis White, used to ride on her bus. They were all a year behind us, but Betty thought that they treated her with just the right amount of awe and respect due a senior. Especially Kent. She recalls that he, alone of the three, actually talked to her. The other two were just along for the laughs. She told me that Kent had names for them: they were "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph". Every time he talked about them, it was always "Good Lew" and "Good Ralph".
I said, "What are you going to do if you find his phone number?"
She said, "I'm going to call him up."
But Yahoo! didn't know him. She was disappointed. I thought I detected a touch of maternal feeling in her concern for the younger man. But I'm probably overstating it - it doesn't take much, really, to wonder what might have happened to Good Lew and Good Ralph and Good Kent.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
1709 Memory Lane
For the reunion weekend, Betty and I made reservations with the Daisy Hill Bed and Breakfast on Blair. Check-in time was 4 PM and they meant it. We arrived a little before three; so, with an hour to kill, we decided to take a tour of the roundabout.
It was familiar territory. During my school years, I carried two different paper routes in the area between Belmont Boulevard and Hillsboro road, from Blair all the way to Gale Lane. Every morning and afternoon I would throw all my papers onto people's porches, for free, and then, once a week, I'd go around, asking to be paid for them. It was an odd arrangement, but most of the time it worked.
We came to the intersection of Blair and Hillsboro Road. On one corner, Pee Wee Blankenship had his drugstore and, on the other corner, Mr. Kinnard had his restaurant. Charlotte says that, years ago, Mr. Apple worked as night manager there. And at Blankenship's, one afternoon, the Reverend Savoy treated me to a coke, even though I wasn't an Episcopalian.
Why did they call him Pee Wee?
My mother went to school with him and she told me that, in sixth grade, he wet his pants, one day, while standing before the class. Later on, he did it again.
You're not going to put that in your blog, are you?
When we crossed over Hillsboro Road, still on Blair, we entered the zone where I delivered my papers. Back then, I knew who lived in every house in the whole area, and was on speaking terms with them. Today, I live in a subdivision of strangers. We wave, but we don't speak. It's my fault, actually: I like it that way.
The first house we came to on the left was where little Jimmy Tarver lived. Jimmy was twelve years old and reminded me of Tiny Tim. He wasn't handicapped, but he was little, bright-eyed and eager. If you've ever seen Freddie Bartholomew in one of those old movies, you'll know what I mean. Jimmy had never been out on a date, but he wanted to go on one. He got a girl to say she would go, but then the logistics got complicated. His mother appealed to me for help, and together we devised a plan.
What was the plan?
Don't you remember? You and I went out on a double date with this little kid and his girlfriend. We picked him up and then we picked up his date. He was all dressed up in a suit and tie and had his hair slicked back. I don't remember what she had on, but he gave her a corsage to wear. After the movie, we took her home first and then we drove Jimmy home.
I don't remember that at all.
Most of the people on Blair were old, but not everybody: on the right, three doors up from the end, two grown girls (I didn't know what else to call them) rented the house. When I made my rounds to collect, one of these girls always came to the door in a bikini, rain or shine. It may not seem worth noting today, but in 1956 this was news. I tried to arrange my visits to coincide with the times that she was there.
About halfway between Belmont and Hillsboro, on the corner, Professor Dewey Grantham moved in, one day, with his family. He was in his thirties, then, just starting his tenure at Vanderbilt. He recently died, emeritus.
And down a few more doors, on the same side of the street, at 1804 Blair, Joe Claxton's grandmother lived in a big house. Every week, when I came by to collect, she asked me how Joe was doing.
At the corner of Blair and Belmont was Sterling Court, the apartment complex with its 11 sections, each having 6 units, up three flights of stairs, for a total of 66 small apartments. Built in the twenties, it was grand in its day. Behind it was a long, wooden, ten car garage. Inside one of the garages, written in chalk on the wooden wall, was this inscription: "I'm the Sheik of Araby." Those garages don't exist, anymore.
Sterling Court was a gothic place back then, set well off the street by a large courtyard with tall trees that held back the sun and made the building and yard always seem dark. In the centermost section, down a half flight of stairs, Mr. Collie, the taciturn manager of the complex, had his office: on one side of the narrow passageway, a small room with a desk, covered by architectural drawings; on the other side, through an open doorway, the coal furnace room, which, in winter, was always going. I saw Mr. Collie often. But I never heard him speak. Certainly, not to me, a mere lad of sixteen. As far as I knew, he was there to fix leaky pipes and shovel coal in the furnace. Nevertheless, in my teenage mind, it was easy to see him as an Ayn Randian type of architect-engineer-hero who created great edifices with one hand, while stoking the furnaces of industry with the other. A somber man in a somber place.
Every morning promptly at 5:15 AM, I would come tearing through Sterling Court like a bat out of hell. I would run up and down the stairs of each of the 11 sections, throwing rolled-up papers, left and right, and be out of there in five minutes flat. They called me the Alarm Clock of Sterling Court.
Really?
Of course.
We turned right, onto Belmont from Blair, and passed the Albemarle Apartments, on the left. They were smaller and stranger than Sterling Court, starting with the name. Who calls anything Albemarle, anymore? Maybe it was named after somebody's dog. I don't know.
It was out in front of the Albemarle Apartments that I ran into Jimmy Jeter, one afternoon, going on about the speed of light, which, in his opinion, was not what it was cracked up to be. During that same time, I used the Albemarle's address as a mail drop for letters I wrote, anonymously, to the Nashville Banner. I wrote one letter, comparing Christianity to Buddhism. I thought that I might get a response from an outraged Christian. Instead, I got a response from an outraged Buddhist.
I had a few customers in the Albemarle, but I seldom saw any of them. I would leave the papers during the week and then, on Friday, they would slip envelopes under their doors into the hallway, with my money in them. Around on the side of the building, however, in a basement apartment, there was a guy who paid me in person. He always came to the door in his shorts. I mention that to dispel any notion that my paper route was all fun and games.
At least, he wasn't a criminal.
True.
The criminal, on my route, rented a room around the corner, on Ashwood. He was one of my best customers. He was also on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The landlady told me that, as the police were hauling him away, he slipped her a couple of bucks, "for the paperboy."
One summer day, I saw Larry Stumb on top of a tall ladder, leaning up against a house on my route. It was at the corner of Ashwood and Oakland, and he was painting it. I don't think he went to Hillsboro, but he must have gone somewhere close, because he kept turning up in different places where I was. Years later, he worked for Merrill Lynch and recommended Texaco to my mother.
We drove down Oakland, past where Miss Van Valkenburgh lived - who gave me a tin of cookies at Christmas time, when a quarter would have done - down to the end of the block, where my route ended. The next few blocks were a no-man's-land to me. I didn't know anybody there. I remembered that the cross streets were all named after trees - Ashwood and Linden, which were on my route; then Primrose, Sweetbriar and Rosewood, which weren't. But then we came to Wildwood and the memories began to come again. I knew Wildwood. It was the boundary of my first paper route. Archeologically, it was older than my other route: the memories were buried deeper.
Wildwood led to Brightwood and the place where all the Holzapfels lived. There were twelve of them. The one in the middle, near my age, was always straight with me. We had mutual respect. For years, I thought his real name was "Hosey".
Further up Brightwood, we came to a place where I lived when I was little - 2902 Brightwood. We lived in the back, in a basement apartment - my parents and me. It was hard times, but I didn't know it.
I have a memory of standing out in front of this place, by the mailbox, with Robin Beard. It's like we were waiting for a school bus, but the problem is, when I started to school, I was living on Lealand Lane. Those two memories don't go together. They don't hook up. One of these days, I'm going to sit down, assemble the facts and figure this out.
Am I boring you?
Keep going. You're doing fine. Just don't drive the car into a ditch.
Ah...
I drove the car into a ditch, early one morning, around the corner at the bottom of Gale Lane. Betty and I had been to a dance and to Mrs. Brown's afterward and, after taking her home, I just went straight to my route. It was six AM and I was coming down Gale Lane in my father's Chrysler and woke up with the car in a ditch. I guess I went to sleep.
Further on down Gale Lane was the dry cleaners owned by Ewing Nicholson's father. And then the grocery store owned, in part, by Bobby Martin's father. The other half being owned by somebody we never heard of, named Cooper. Next to the Grocery was Moore's Drugstore. Across the street was Kusan Plastics Co. And next to that was a Dairy Queen.
Back up Gale Lane was where Sally Dykes lived. That was a base for us in the old days. The Class Prophecy was written in Sally Dykes' living room.
Do you think there should be a plaque?
I tell the jokes around here.
Sorry.
We drove back down Belmont to Blair and then up to the Daisy Hill B&B to check in. Later that evening, we were hobnobbing with the swells we used to know. I saw Sally Dykes out on the patio and made for her. When she saw me, she started crying. I took it as a compliment. But she was just happy to see me after fifty years. And I was happy to see her. I told her that we had driven by her old house earlier in the afternoon.
Sally said, "I'm still living there!"
The only thing I could think of to say was, "1709 Gale Lane!"
It was familiar territory. During my school years, I carried two different paper routes in the area between Belmont Boulevard and Hillsboro road, from Blair all the way to Gale Lane. Every morning and afternoon I would throw all my papers onto people's porches, for free, and then, once a week, I'd go around, asking to be paid for them. It was an odd arrangement, but most of the time it worked.
We came to the intersection of Blair and Hillsboro Road. On one corner, Pee Wee Blankenship had his drugstore and, on the other corner, Mr. Kinnard had his restaurant. Charlotte says that, years ago, Mr. Apple worked as night manager there. And at Blankenship's, one afternoon, the Reverend Savoy treated me to a coke, even though I wasn't an Episcopalian.
Why did they call him Pee Wee?
My mother went to school with him and she told me that, in sixth grade, he wet his pants, one day, while standing before the class. Later on, he did it again.
You're not going to put that in your blog, are you?
When we crossed over Hillsboro Road, still on Blair, we entered the zone where I delivered my papers. Back then, I knew who lived in every house in the whole area, and was on speaking terms with them. Today, I live in a subdivision of strangers. We wave, but we don't speak. It's my fault, actually: I like it that way.
The first house we came to on the left was where little Jimmy Tarver lived. Jimmy was twelve years old and reminded me of Tiny Tim. He wasn't handicapped, but he was little, bright-eyed and eager. If you've ever seen Freddie Bartholomew in one of those old movies, you'll know what I mean. Jimmy had never been out on a date, but he wanted to go on one. He got a girl to say she would go, but then the logistics got complicated. His mother appealed to me for help, and together we devised a plan.
What was the plan?
Don't you remember? You and I went out on a double date with this little kid and his girlfriend. We picked him up and then we picked up his date. He was all dressed up in a suit and tie and had his hair slicked back. I don't remember what she had on, but he gave her a corsage to wear. After the movie, we took her home first and then we drove Jimmy home.
I don't remember that at all.
Most of the people on Blair were old, but not everybody: on the right, three doors up from the end, two grown girls (I didn't know what else to call them) rented the house. When I made my rounds to collect, one of these girls always came to the door in a bikini, rain or shine. It may not seem worth noting today, but in 1956 this was news. I tried to arrange my visits to coincide with the times that she was there.
About halfway between Belmont and Hillsboro, on the corner, Professor Dewey Grantham moved in, one day, with his family. He was in his thirties, then, just starting his tenure at Vanderbilt. He recently died, emeritus.
And down a few more doors, on the same side of the street, at 1804 Blair, Joe Claxton's grandmother lived in a big house. Every week, when I came by to collect, she asked me how Joe was doing.
At the corner of Blair and Belmont was Sterling Court, the apartment complex with its 11 sections, each having 6 units, up three flights of stairs, for a total of 66 small apartments. Built in the twenties, it was grand in its day. Behind it was a long, wooden, ten car garage. Inside one of the garages, written in chalk on the wooden wall, was this inscription: "I'm the Sheik of Araby." Those garages don't exist, anymore.
Sterling Court was a gothic place back then, set well off the street by a large courtyard with tall trees that held back the sun and made the building and yard always seem dark. In the centermost section, down a half flight of stairs, Mr. Collie, the taciturn manager of the complex, had his office: on one side of the narrow passageway, a small room with a desk, covered by architectural drawings; on the other side, through an open doorway, the coal furnace room, which, in winter, was always going. I saw Mr. Collie often. But I never heard him speak. Certainly, not to me, a mere lad of sixteen. As far as I knew, he was there to fix leaky pipes and shovel coal in the furnace. Nevertheless, in my teenage mind, it was easy to see him as an Ayn Randian type of architect-engineer-hero who created great edifices with one hand, while stoking the furnaces of industry with the other. A somber man in a somber place.
Every morning promptly at 5:15 AM, I would come tearing through Sterling Court like a bat out of hell. I would run up and down the stairs of each of the 11 sections, throwing rolled-up papers, left and right, and be out of there in five minutes flat. They called me the Alarm Clock of Sterling Court.
Really?
Of course.
We turned right, onto Belmont from Blair, and passed the Albemarle Apartments, on the left. They were smaller and stranger than Sterling Court, starting with the name. Who calls anything Albemarle, anymore? Maybe it was named after somebody's dog. I don't know.
It was out in front of the Albemarle Apartments that I ran into Jimmy Jeter, one afternoon, going on about the speed of light, which, in his opinion, was not what it was cracked up to be. During that same time, I used the Albemarle's address as a mail drop for letters I wrote, anonymously, to the Nashville Banner. I wrote one letter, comparing Christianity to Buddhism. I thought that I might get a response from an outraged Christian. Instead, I got a response from an outraged Buddhist.I had a few customers in the Albemarle, but I seldom saw any of them. I would leave the papers during the week and then, on Friday, they would slip envelopes under their doors into the hallway, with my money in them. Around on the side of the building, however, in a basement apartment, there was a guy who paid me in person. He always came to the door in his shorts. I mention that to dispel any notion that my paper route was all fun and games.
At least, he wasn't a criminal.
True.
The criminal, on my route, rented a room around the corner, on Ashwood. He was one of my best customers. He was also on the FBI's Most Wanted List. The landlady told me that, as the police were hauling him away, he slipped her a couple of bucks, "for the paperboy."
One summer day, I saw Larry Stumb on top of a tall ladder, leaning up against a house on my route. It was at the corner of Ashwood and Oakland, and he was painting it. I don't think he went to Hillsboro, but he must have gone somewhere close, because he kept turning up in different places where I was. Years later, he worked for Merrill Lynch and recommended Texaco to my mother.
We drove down Oakland, past where Miss Van Valkenburgh lived - who gave me a tin of cookies at Christmas time, when a quarter would have done - down to the end of the block, where my route ended. The next few blocks were a no-man's-land to me. I didn't know anybody there. I remembered that the cross streets were all named after trees - Ashwood and Linden, which were on my route; then Primrose, Sweetbriar and Rosewood, which weren't. But then we came to Wildwood and the memories began to come again. I knew Wildwood. It was the boundary of my first paper route. Archeologically, it was older than my other route: the memories were buried deeper.
Wildwood led to Brightwood and the place where all the Holzapfels lived. There were twelve of them. The one in the middle, near my age, was always straight with me. We had mutual respect. For years, I thought his real name was "Hosey".
Further up Brightwood, we came to a place where I lived when I was little - 2902 Brightwood. We lived in the back, in a basement apartment - my parents and me. It was hard times, but I didn't know it.
I have a memory of standing out in front of this place, by the mailbox, with Robin Beard. It's like we were waiting for a school bus, but the problem is, when I started to school, I was living on Lealand Lane. Those two memories don't go together. They don't hook up. One of these days, I'm going to sit down, assemble the facts and figure this out.
Am I boring you?
Keep going. You're doing fine. Just don't drive the car into a ditch.
Ah...
I drove the car into a ditch, early one morning, around the corner at the bottom of Gale Lane. Betty and I had been to a dance and to Mrs. Brown's afterward and, after taking her home, I just went straight to my route. It was six AM and I was coming down Gale Lane in my father's Chrysler and woke up with the car in a ditch. I guess I went to sleep.
Further on down Gale Lane was the dry cleaners owned by Ewing Nicholson's father. And then the grocery store owned, in part, by Bobby Martin's father. The other half being owned by somebody we never heard of, named Cooper. Next to the Grocery was Moore's Drugstore. Across the street was Kusan Plastics Co. And next to that was a Dairy Queen.
Back up Gale Lane was where Sally Dykes lived. That was a base for us in the old days. The Class Prophecy was written in Sally Dykes' living room.
Do you think there should be a plaque?
I tell the jokes around here.
Sorry.
We drove back down Belmont to Blair and then up to the Daisy Hill B&B to check in. Later that evening, we were hobnobbing with the swells we used to know. I saw Sally Dykes out on the patio and made for her. When she saw me, she started crying. I took it as a compliment. But she was just happy to see me after fifty years. And I was happy to see her. I told her that we had driven by her old house earlier in the afternoon.
Sally said, "I'm still living there!"
The only thing I could think of to say was, "1709 Gale Lane!"
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