At 105 MPH, take the next right!

OK, it’s a bit foggy in the mind, but pretty close. The year was probably 1957 or 1958. It was “in the day”. I was out with Alan Forman and clearly some others, but who was there and where we were is still a bit foggy.

We were somewhere and we were drinking. I know this because it was the root of the problem.

We were racing with another car, I was with Alan in what I think was a 1957 Plymouth, which must have belonged to his father because I didn’t have one of those. It was a slow, six cylinder vehicle.

The other car coming from some party or another was full of guys; I remember Arthur Hoffman (of the Black Aggie incident fame) and Alvin Shevitz, for some reason. They disappear in my version of the story.

We were coming down (this is Baltimore County, MD) Reisterstown Road, from far out in the “boonies”, when we started racing with the other car. Just speeding under the influence, and we were winning! We pulled ahead and as we reached Pikesville we went over the 100 mph mark!

It was then I heard the siren! I thought quickly and yelled, “Turn right! “: (which we did somehow).

I figured the police car can only stop one of us, and why would he come after us when it was easier to stay on Reisterstown Road and chase them. Not too smart.! He went after the one fleeing the scene.

I decided that I’d get rid of the beer, so if they stopped us he wouldn’t know we were drinking. Not a good move either, because as I was tossing those cans out of the window I noticed the headlights on my hand! It seems he was following us closely and watching me throw it all out!

We were caught! There would be no way around it. I wasn’t driving (good point) but I was throwing, (littering, if nothing else). We know that “in the day” drunk driving was not the crime it has become, and was considered by us as more of a “contact sport”, but really just as dangerous as it is now. We were just stupid!

We pulled over and the policeman asked us to get into his car. We explained that a group of guys (many of them) we didn’t know were chasing us and we were scared. We were trying to get away from them. This was a pretty good excuse because we knew too much time had elapsed for him to catch up with them, and discover they were our friends.

He was not happy about the beer, but I explained we weren’t drinking it, but didn’t want to be caught with it on us. It was far fetched, but he started driving, telling us he would find the other car. However he wasn’t driving very fast so he could never get there.

He did tell Alan to look at me in the backseat, and look at my eyes; he used a flashlight to make his point. He told Alan that my eyes “looked like two piss holes in the snow”! This killed us both and we broke into gales of laughter which eased the mood considerably.

He eventually got us back to the car and let us go with a warning.

God Bless that cop. He saved our asses. We didn’t get into trouble again like that for at least another year!

Art theft, break-ins and other weekend thoughts

Several years ago, on a cold Saturday night, about 9:30 p.m., (although I’d already fallen asleep watching Goldmember, but that’s another story) the phone rang. It was my old friend, ADT, letting me know we had a break in at school.

This usually happens every 15 months or so, but this was earlier in the evening than usual, thankfully. I arrived in about 10 or 15 minutes and met the police. They had gotten therein a very short time and posted policemen at three sides of the building, and could view all exits. We all waited for the canine unit.

They showed, two guys and a dog. I let them in, stood back, and waited. It took a lot of time as we were freezing outside, but eventually they came out. The perp was gone.

I went through the building and nothing was taken, as usual. There is little to take, and the motion detectors work real well and the potential thieves never take anything. My real fear is vandalism, as there is little to steal.

The computers are mostly old, and we do have back up. The only cash is in a 19th century safe, which would need dynamite to open if you could find it. You would be dissapointed with the little bit of cash we keep.

The perp broke two or three student sculptures crawling through a lower level window. He pried off the screen and molding and the window, much to my surprise, was open. They are all secured today.

Two hours later, after trying to raise fingerprints, I went home and watched Saturday Night Live, as I couldn’t sleep for a while.

In the 1980’s, in Detroit, when I had a break-in in my office, there were $60,000 worth of prints in a folio in my office. The thieves took an umbrella I had gotten for free from Aramis perfume!

(I just checked and I have told this umbrella theft from the office story three times in these 123 posts! My friends must be right, I am an old coot and have no idea what I'm saying or how many times I've said it!)

Art is not something to sell from the trunk of your car, down on the corner.

Just roll the dice.....

This is an interesting exchange of letters. I enjoyed the experience and was delighted with the outcome. There is a missing letter in between just saying we’ll take and send it. While it’s not a great story, I like that it all happens in these letters. The game itself was quite amazing and I have no actual photos of the game so you’d have to arrange with the museum to see it:

To: Elliott Avedon, Games Museum, University of Waterloo

From: Arthur Greenblatt

December 3, 2002

From 1989 until 1993 I was the President of the Montserrat College of Art, on Dunham Road, in Beverly, Massachusetts. We were located next to the Parker Brothers headquarters. As their efforts to sell their huge glass building in the woods were not coming to fruition, they tried to downsize by moving to half the building in an effort to lease the other half, or to sell the building and the would lease the other half. During this period of time, they were nice enough to give us office and even some classroom space for a few years. They even supported us financially after being sold to Hasbro.

As they were moving, this box was left behind, and I asked the person in charge of the move if I could have the box, seeing as it was a graphic delight and no one seemed to want it. It contained the game you see, a large playing board (29” x 43” open) in a large graphic box (22” x 30”). It is all in Japanese, and was sent to Parker Bros. from Kenner, to a Larry Bernstein.

The imagery on the playing board is crudely done anime, with such images as spanking, bathing, squatting over a Japanese toilet and some other nude images. Inside, as you can see, are directions, a game board, 2 small metal clips, three box cardboard cutouts, a sheet of game pieces and a blue board of some sort. It all seems to be there.

I have been carrying this around since I left and have had no use for it. I ran across an article on your game museum and thought I’d contact you to see if you have any interest in having this one. I would be happy to donate it.

Let me know if you have an interest.


University of
Waterloo

January 15, 2003

Dear Mr. Greenblatt;

Thank you for the generous donation of Japanese "Game of Life," if we may be
able to call it that. While we have not yet been able to determine the actual name, oriental
students in our department have indicated it has many religious (Buddhist) overtones. It
appears somewhat like a "snakes and ladders" game where one can either end up in Hell
or Nirvana throughout play of the game, with the goal being to reach the divine. It looks
like one is able to begin either in a form of Hell (the 3'd degree), or as a regular person in
the material, common world, and then, I suppose with the roll of a die, can determine
which direction they proceed. We will enlist the services of someone who can read
Japanese to provide us with the full details for our records.
As you may be aware, most of the collection at the E. A. Museum and Archive of
Games has been acquired by donation, and yours is very much appreciated, as such a
game is currently not part of the collection. It is great to obtain the original box too, as
one can see how such games were marketed in Japan.
The game will be formally accessioned into the Museum's collection, so please
find the enclosed Donation forms, add your signature as required, keep one for your files,
and return the other to us in the envelope provided.
Once again, many thanks for the donation. If you ever find yourself in the
Waterloo area. please drop by the Museum.

Yours sincerely,

Museum and
Archive of Games

Faculty of
Applied Health Sciences

University of Waterloo

"Deathbed Promise"

I try not to break death bed promises and usually succeed. However, I don’t make too many of them, in fact I can only think of two.

The first, from my mother, was not exactly a death bed, but she knew the end was near (probably six months to a year away) and she sat with me and made me promise to distribute her goods in a manner she directed. I did that when she died and never forgot a bit of it. It was a solemn oath.

The next one, however, probably doesn’t count as the guy didn’t know he was dying, he just happened to after getting me to promise some stuff I wouldn’t have promised if I’d have known he was going to die.

Many years ago we’d hired a highly recommended consultant. He was an expert in developing planning initiatives for not-for-profit organizations. We needed some consultative advice, and he looked like the guy to fill the bill.

He was with us for most of a week. He spent time interviewing students, faculty, staff and trustees. He was developing a suggested plan, as well as an overview of the institution as it stood.

Late on Thursday he came to see me and asked if we could go to a more private location then my office, as what we were going to talk about was highly confidential.

We went down to the basement, and sat in an empty classroom to discuss his concerns.

While he had a few things about me he wished to discuss, they were considered insignificant within his concerns and will not be brought forth by me now. His real concern was that it was believed that my boss was sleeping with several women on the staff, and was drinking entirely too much. He assured me that most people, regardless of their positions, knew these revelations. While I argued that the information was, in fact, not true, the perception was the active reality. There was enough truth floating around to make it possible, and it would be a no win situation regardless.

Once again I bring up the notion of the value of a non-fraternization policy. Having such would have given the institution more of a leg to stand on and would have eliminated much of the angst left on my shoulders.

He would not include any of these revelations (allegations) within the text of his report, but was entrusting me with the information in hopes that I could help to alleviate the responsibility he had been given. In other words, I should fix it, he was too uncomfortable. It was my duty to discuss this with my boss in order to change his behaviour (like that was happening!).

Our consultant also owned a business; it was a hotel in Virginia, in a beautiful, wooded location with a fine restaurant attached. He wanted to go back to Washington, his home, because he planned to visit his hotel soon. So on Friday afternoon, we all said goodbye to him, told him we’d await his report. We winked at each other, I said I’d take care of everything, and he left.

On Tuesday morning I received a call that our consultant had been killed in a single car accident early Sunday morning, having driven into the night. He came home Friday night, worked on Saturday and instead of leaving on Sunday morning for Virginia he decided to go when he finished his paperwork on Saturday night.

An hour later, I received his report in the mail.

Did I do what I promised this guy on his unknowing deathbed? Well...not exactly.
The pressure was off me because I was the only person who knew what everyone knew.

I sort of brought it up but not with the promised vigour, and it all made not a bit of difference in the end.

The truth itself was mostly fiction. But, perception was everything.

"Deathbed Promise" a painting by Edvard Munch

My last visit to the Diner...

The fictional account of the diner, Barry Levinson’s movie, “Diner” was a work of art. I truly loved it. It was, however, fiction. It was based on a reality, and on real characters, but none the less, fiction.

The late Chip Silverman wrote the book, “Diner Guys” and while I didn’t appear in the book, Chip himself called me a real Diner Guy, a real Mendel’s Guy. For my Baltimore readers this will make sense. So while I lived it, I also saw the flaws.

The last time I went to the Diner was probably 1962. A group of us went in after attending some event or other, and we sat down. No one came over to us, and we waited for what seemed like a long time.

Eventually a policeman came over and told us the owners wanted us to leave peacefully. We were stunned! What had we done? Then the realization came over us that we were sitting with a black guy! Our friend, Marvin Matthews was with us, and we hadn’t considered the consequences!

We were having a sit in! We had no idea what we were doing! We inadvertently had created an event and didn't know it.

I was mainly embarrassed for our friend.

We left peacefully (well, sort of, there was some bit of an incident) and went to Howard Johnsons which by its national foot print allowed everyone to come in.

It was my last visit to the diner.

Funny thing about grave sites is that when I go to see a famous person’s grave, it rains!

OK, I don’t go rushing there often, in fact I’ve only done it twice, but both times the sky opened and it poured. These were not necessarily projected storms; just surprise ones that caught me a bit off guard.

The first one was at Graceland, the last place I’d expected to be. I was at a conference in Memphis and I asked the organizers if there was a planned bus tour to Graceland. They laughed at me and said a bunch of art educators would not be interested in stuff like that. They agreed to list it and if they could find another person or two they’d get us together to share a cab.

That lasted about ten minutes after posting and of course, they had to get a bus.

The tour was great, Graceland was smaller than expected but wonderful, and when we reached Elvis’s grave the skies opened. I was standing there with Don Irving, the then president of the School of Art Institute of Chicago, and we both started to laugh. I said how the last place I’d expected to be was standing in the rain at Elvis’s grave and he was the last person I’d expect to be there with. Oh well, we’ll always have Memphis!

The second one was Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris. The photo is mine (as opposed to the Elvis one I found on the net) and the rain is not evident. We were in a deluge, but by the time we worked our way through the cemetery, a huge village of graves and mausoleums, the rain had subsided. The place had been cleared of most of the Morrison related graffiti. It was a plain, somber, but wet experience.

I have no idea where I’ve been going with these adventures, but needless to say I have some concern over this. When I visit a celebrity grave next, I will pack an umbrella. I have no plans as yet, but I do have an interest in visiting the grave of Gregory Hines, the dancer and actor who I enjoyed very much in life. He is buried less than an hour from here but I’ll check the weather report before I venture forth.

Giving birth after dinner!

I don’t usually tell as story until way past its happening, but tonight is different. It was an interesting evening and I witnessed the miracle of birth after dinner, but before dessert!

We had dinner tonight at the home of Carl Loewith and Sandy Katz and some of their friends. Carl owns a good sized dairy farm here in Ancaster, and after dinner, we all went for a walk around the farm, as one might do after a nice dinner.

I was quite hot, as we were eating outside in the sun, and even with an umbrella it was a bit hot! After dinner we decided to take the walk and as we passed by the barns, one of the cows was starting to give birth. The calf’s head and front legs were sticking out of the cow!

OK, a bunch of city people do not know what to do except stare and point and say stuff like, “that cow’s having a baby!”

Carl, long time Jewish farmer (not your average profession for Jewish boys) has several hundred head of dairy cattle, and has about a calf a day. This is the norm for him but for us it was the wonder of life!

Carl went and got a glove (very long!), some lubricant (not KY) and a sort of block and tackle kind of thing for removing calves from their mothers. Using all that stuff, he climbed in the pen and helped the cow give birth. A farm hand came by and helped get the calf to the ground (the baby weighs about 100 pounds).

We went back and had dessert.

No, we did not have any meat for dinner, we had salmon.

The calf will not be named Arthur, which would have probably have been a good idea.

But I have never experienced such a thing between courses!

New Years Eve 1959 - Corrected!

In Happy New Year, 1959, posted on March 26, 2009, I described the abduction of Edgar Kauffman from the hospital by Mike Mund (later Mike Youngfellow). This abduction, which happened more than 50 years ago, was an important event in my life and has always been a great story. But, as I post stories for public consumption, I am able to withstand some correction of fact.

Logically, Mike being a small guy, there was no way he could have removed Edgar from the hospital by himself. However, I had no idea today if he were helped. Enter into the picture my old friend and Broadway producer, Kenneth Waissman.

Kenneth Waissman won Broadway's 1983 Tony Award as one of the producers of Best Play winner "Torch Song Trilogy." He was also nominated two other times with collaborator Maxine Fox: in 1972, as co-producer of Best Musical nominee "Grease;" and in 1974, as co-producer of Best Musical nominee "Over Here!"

While “Grease” is his best known show, his now bigger claim to fame is that he was one of the hospital abductors! Someone else was there, but Kenny doesn’t remember who it was.

No matter, a new chapter in teen aged trouble has been unearthed and corrected!

Seat Belt Saga...

My late mother and my Aunt were a great pair of characters.

My Aunt Hilda, very much alive and a reader of these pages (so I have to be careful what I say) were very close. After my father passed away, my mother was very busy for the first few years, and my Aunt and my Uncle Sid were very helpful to her. As she grew older, my Uncle passed away. Both women were widowed and lived within a mile of each other.

My mother and my Aunt both drove at that time although my mother was getting toward the end of her driving days. She really didn’t start until she was widowed and had her own set of driving rules, but most memorable was no left turns!

She had to plan every trip out with some way to avoid left turns. This is possible if you have unlimited patience, gas and time, all of which she had.

Later on, she stopped driving and went with my Aunt, who is still driving I believe, and as she says, "I can’t walk to well so I have to drive!" There is a madness in that philosophy, but a good one! My Aunt has her own unique set of driving rules, but since she is still on the road, I will refrain from making comments.

So off they went to some place, but my mother never liked the seat belt! She was in it, in my Aunts car, but she could not get it unbuckled! She tried, my Aunt tried, and as I remember, there was no way out! My Aunt drove to a tailors shop, I believe., and borrowed a scissors, and cut the seat belt.

From that day on, when my mother went in any car, she held the seat belt in front of her, but never buckled it. She wanted who ever was driving to be free of a moving violation, so she always looked like she was buckled in.

She just never was!

Dancing toe to toe...

In 1968 or 1969 my boys were at home playing in the front of the bathroom. This was a two room bathroom and the playing area (or holding area) was in the front with the toilet and bath in the back. The boys were about five and two at the time.

Their mother was taking a bath in the back room while they were playing in the front part. Cliff, the oldest, was playing with his fourth toe stuck in the linen closet door, not on purpose, just jutting out into the door jamb. Brian, the younger one, slammed the door and removed the top part of the toe.

There was some blood, although the foot was in a sock preventing a huge mess, and there was screaming from all involved.

My wife quickly left the bath, dressed, called the neighbor to come and help and the neighbor drove her to the hospital with the kids.

I was at work at the time, and by the time they reached me, I ran home to look for the toe first, in hopes of reattaching it. Needless to say it was in the sock, but I was too late to do anything about saving it.

A year later we had another son, Josh.

Josh was born with eleven toes……

From a pile of student teaching stories I remember....

Years ago I had the position of Director of Student Teaching. I was responsible for our senior class each year, to find them suitable positions so that they could be certified as Art Teachers in the state school system.

We developed a new teacher training system which could allow new teachers to become certified in either Elementary or Secondary teaching, or they could do both. Their student teaching placement was based upon their choices.

We offered an opportunity for city or suburban teaching, public or private schools, specialized teaching such as special education, which had no specific art teacher accreditation at that time, or even museum instruction for one of the situations. Each student had two, six week placements.

One of our students had been a fellow I went to elementary school with, making him an older student. He had already graduated from another institution and had come back to complete his teacher training. He was an accomplished artist and a good guy and was one of our most serious students.

His first placement was in a private girls school, where he taught the secondary art students under a long time, accomplished art teacher. She was excited to get him and I was delighted to provide an older artist for their classroom position.

About four weeks into his experience, I received a call from the classroom teacher asking me to remove the student from her classroom.

This was a serious request which seldom, if ever, happens. Since he was to have a second experience, it was not a “life or death” situation for the student.

He called me as well, and was beside himself not knowing what to do.

He had been teaching the senior class, and had two very talented seventeen year old girls who were quite serious about their art and their desire for an art career. He was thoroughly convinced that they would be wonderful additions to the world of art and proud that he had been instrumental in their development. As such, he invited them to his downtown studio to see his work. He had done this several times and they had finally agreed to visit.

He failed to see any problem with two wealthy private school girls coming downtown to visit the studio of a thirty two year male old artist. However, their parents saw all the problems!

They called school and that, was that!

He truly believed what he was doing was correct. He had no evil thoughts in mind. I believed him, however, he didn’t understand life. He said that next year, when they were in college, it would be a normal process to visit a teacher’s studio.

Correct, next year!

What a difference a year makes! Two high school seniors might be the same age as two college freshman, but the world changes over three months of summer.

We immediately put him in a public high school student teaching situation for 8 more weeks. He had glowing reports from the cooperating teacher at the private school, he just wasn’t allowed to return.

He succeeded in both situations and ended up a wiser teacher, just a bit shaken.

A bit of a rant!

Did you notice that we are seeing the death of the underarm spray-on deodorant? What is this? Do we have a group plotting the destruction of the spray based on saving the ozone? Do we have people plotting to stop us from fouling our atmosphere? Or, do we have people who want us to foul up our atmosphere by not smelling very good?

Of late I have been unable, when I try, to purchase my non-scented deodorant, and in fact the few sprays I have found are usually “sport” scented. What is “sport” scent but the smell of sweat?

The available products seem to be the solid sticks (I hate those sticky things), the roll on ball (forget that) and the all-in-one spray for all your private and your exposed parts.

That may surely be the plot, the all-in-one.

They took away shirt sleeve dimensions by adding two buttons, so you could have 32/33 etc. This was done instead of actual sizes, the more expensive product to make. They gave us expandable waist pants (great for me) to give us give, but to also make one size to sort of fit many. They gave us the OSFA label (one size fits all), something that never works. I have a size 8 head! There is no normal baseball cap in the one size that can come close to an 8! In the effort to save manufacturing costs to maximize profits, we have losr something in the translation.

I do believe the plan is to switch us to the one smell, one product, one body junk rather than make different products in different containers in different sizes. We have stuff like AXE, the one smell for everything, and we have all over sprays, which give us one product for everything.

I want my spray deodorant! (Do this to the tune of "I want my MTV")

Full tilt edit or, think before you speak

I was on the road yesterday and was feeling tired. I drove by a little Mom and Pop ice cream and snack food stand and decided to go and buy a cone.

I went up to the counter and ordered a small twist. The young lady gave it to me and I asked her where the bathroom was. She told me to go around the back and enter through the back door.

There was a bathroom in the back, sort of in the stand itself, but behind their workplace. I walked around the back and went to enter the bathroom when the girl came to the back, looked at me and my bit of a dilemma, and said, “Can I hold that for you sir?”

My full mouth filter came on, and I could not do it to this apple cheeked young lady.

She looked at me again, as I smiled, and she said, “Can I hold the cone for you while you go in?”

"No need," I said, "but thanks anyway."

In spite of my son’s concerns, sometimes I do think before I speak.

We have a winner.......

In 2003, our then bookkeeper told me that on Saturday her mother, aged 79, was in a car accident, totaling her car. Three people in the other car went to the hospital and but she escaped any injury.

Her son was told what happened as he lives nearby and he rushed to the scene of the accident. His mother did not want his help, but needed him to complete her mission.

He called his wife (afraid to leave his mother alone with the police etc.) to completed the task. She needed to get to the public library, which was closing soon, and pick up a copy of a Canadian history book she needed to be ready for the Reader’s Digest questionnaire which she was expecting to come on Monday, so she could qualify for the next level and win the big prize.

She then went home to wait for the book and then for the letter.

as promised, the second gun story

My middle son Brian was about three or four, and we lived next door to some wonderful people. We all loved each other, and they were great neighbors. However, one day Brian was home and wanted to visit next door. He took himself over and pushed on the door, as he couldn’t reach the door bell. He walked in, looked around and seeing no one, proceeded upstairs.

My neighbor, who was home alone, heard someone enter, and start to walk upstairs. She went to the drawer where she kept her "just in case "pistol,, brought it out, released the safety and proceeded to meet the intruder. She was shocked when she saw Brian coming up the stairs and quickly put the pistol away.

She sheepishly told me the story, and was very upset by her actions.

They quickly installed a long rawhide thong with a cow bell attached to their mail box, and it was called, from that time on, Brian’s Bell.

I'm just protecting my land said the cowboy....

Very often Canadians get fascinated by truly American stories that could not happen here. They are sometimes amused or horrified. Here’s one that “did the trick” and was both.

In the late 60’s, when my oldest son was about six years old, we lived in a nice suburban neighborhood in suburban Baltimore County, Maryland.

The neighbor on the corner had an extremely manicured lawn. He worked on it, as did his wife, as if it were a full-time job. They used scissors!

I gathered later on that he was the target of several teen aged boys who had him in their sights. His lawn was just a great target.

He had a little fence around it, a decorative one, about 12” high made of white metal poles with white chains connecting them. His wife worked out there most days in a assortment of tube tops, and was the neighborhood pin up girl in an old girl sort of way. To add to this, he was the uncle of one of my friends, although they were not friendly people and I never had really spoken to him, but would wave hello when I came out.

One day my son and his friend, both six years old, walked down the street and stepped onto his lawn. That was all they had done. He ran out of his house with his son, who brought with him a rifle and pointed it at the boys and yelled at them to get off their lawn. The two boys did so, however they were scared to death!

I called the police, feeling that a conversation seemed one sided, because he surely would shoot me if I begged the question. I could have borrowed a handgun from either one of my next door neighbors who would have been happy to lend me one, or, in fact, been happy to just go over and shoot him!

The policeman was beside himself, and could hardly believe the story, but went over there assuming he probably wouldn’t open fire on an armed officer of the law.

He discussed the matter with the family, and came back to talk to us. He did explain the man’s dilemma with local kids, but it was pointed out that this might not have been a good solution, pulling a gun on two unarmed six year olds.

The gun turned out to be a bb rifle, so it would only wound them. However, he agreed to stop and seek a better solution.

Tomorrow I’ll post another gun story as it related to my younger son.

a word from the management

My son the lawyer called last night and warned me about my “living large” on the net. He was concerned that some of my material could get me into trouble because some people do not understand funny stuff that includes sexual innuendo. I assured him I was discrete and that I never really said anything I’d considered bad, but he assured me that I implied enough to get myself into trouble.

I admit that in the past my sons have displayed a great amount of paranoia when it pertains to my sometimes, by their standards, outrageous activity. Although I can’t see it and consider myself a normal member of our society, I will give him his credit, and can not assume that he is automatically wrong. In his world, a more business environment than I live in, a corporate world, my normal behavior would or could be considered out of character with the corporate climate. However, I do not live in such a fishbowl and consider the rebuke as a bit weird.

So, saying that, I’d removed the illustration from yesterdays post and included a more normal photo of a backyard swimming pool. I will not allude to the previous photo as not to incur the wrath of my offspring.

I will try and use the filter God gave me from now on to temper my remarks.

The light has been shed...

It takes twenty years or more for some stories to come to light. My sons usually provide me with a tidbit every now and then about the “good old days” that somehow I didn’t know. Every parent goes through this kind of thing eventually.

However, to get this from a friend can be an eye opening experience!

Last night on the phone I heard a story (a confession) from the early 80’s not involving any of my kids!

It seems a friend of mine was having an affair with another one of my friends. I was not surprised to learn about this as I had suspected it anyway, it just came to light yesterday. His second affair with the same woman many years later was another mystery solved, but still not an eye opener!

It seems that while my family and I were away, my friends sneaked into my back year on a beautiful summer evening for a nude swim and love making. (How nice I put it. I could have been a romance writer.)

The next day, the young woman realized that she was without underwear, and confessed to my friend that perhaps he needed to find them. He came over the next night, came over the fence and retrieved her underwear so we wouldn’t find them upon our return.

I laughed so much, as this was great nostalgia (for him I think), that I called my first wife to tell her what happened. She was less than enthusiastic for sure, and, if she still owned the house, would have had the pool drained and scrubbed!

Yesterday, after dropping my youngest daughter off at my school so she could work, and buying a piece of ceramics from the sale we were having in the school’s front yard, I attacked my “to do” list. The first stop was to go to the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) Store, the liquor store, and get four bottles of Fuzion, this most popular new wine, a favorite on the local horizon. Even with all that activity I arrived a few minutes prior to their ten o’clock opening (on Saturday).

I had a few minutes to kill and I walked around the shopping center, went to the bank and finally, still not quite ten o’clock, I returned.

I saw a man approaching from my right, and I assumed we’d be in line for a minute or two. I thought I’d say something as we were both standing in line in front of a liquor store, waiting for it to open.

I figured I’d open with, “the first sign of alcoholism is finding yourself standing in front of a liquor store waiting for it to open!”, and I’d see where it went from there.

When we reached the front, before I opened my mouth, I looked at the man. He was skinny (I know compared to me most people are skinny), needed a shave, his fly was partially open and his hand was shaking as he lit his cigarette.

I rethought my opening move, and he said, “They always get an extra minute or two. My watch says they’re late”.

I smiled, looked at my watch, told him that they still had a few minutes, and went back to window shopping until they opened.

Sometimes, although not often, the filter in my head still works!

The Freudian Slip....

Let’s take another look at this picture I first posted on May 25, 2009. It’s an interesting Freudian slip for sure. In it, a group of intrepid travelers have taken off from Hamilton, Ontario to the “Big Smoke”, Toronto, “center of the universe”.

These nine people have banded together to see the Sotheby’s /Ritchies auction of important Canadian Art. The show has ended, and we have convinced Steven Ranger, the President of Ritchies to take our group photo. No one is paying attention much, we’re just rallying around the big poster to get into the picture.

So why, I ask, is Bert, my buddy from Dundas, standing on the left with his arm around my wife (whose name can not ne mentioned here as you know), as I am standing next to her with my hand on Debbie, Bert’s wife. No one else seems to be touching.

Enquiring minds want to know……..

Curator (OK, Guest Curator)

The painting is Nightfall, by Jeffrey Spalding.

They usually never ask me to do anything much with art (other then make it and teach it). In 2001, they asked me to be a “celebrity curator” of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton.

I visited their backrooms, and got to choose what I wanted for a big wall, the “celebrity space”.

I said I wanted to do blue paintings, and they frowned.

I said I was not bound by the burden of art history, they scowled.

I said I only wanted to do paintings by guys named David, they smirked.

I said I only wanted to do paintings by friends, they looked up, and when I said we’ll start with Jeffrey Spalding, they smiled.

Then, I looked at Jeffrey’s Niagara Falls painting “Dark Union”, saw a monochromatic, chiaroscuro type look, and I declared that we would do monochromatic stuff!! They made the sign of the cross and we commenced.

I included, besides Jeffrey; Davis Diao (1969), Michelle Balfe (1978), Charles Emile Jacque (1813-1894) and George Agnew Reid (1860-1947). My talk was in late May, and I had no idea what to say but I’d figure something out by the time I reached it. The show was up most of that summer.

The talk was anticlimactic, as who would come out on a lovely spring night in the middle of the week to hear a guy talk about the wall he put together. There was a lovely family consisting of a father and two kids and a few museum guards, one curator with an assistant and maybe, in hindsight, there may have been a few others.

I don’t remember what I said, but I also answered questions. Thank God for the curator, there was a question or two to answer.

All in all it was great fun, and they even provided me with an honorarium.

Now, on my resume, I can list curator (OK, Guest Curator!).

Black Aggie

If you lived in Baltimore and you are interested in urban legends than one of the stories that you would have heard from childhood was the legend of Black Aggie. Black Aggie was a monument that was placed on a grave site at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, MD. She was placed on the General Felix Agnus family plot.

It was rumored that no grass would ever grow at her base. She was made of black marble and sat viewing the grounds. The legend grew to those who believed in a dark side. As urban legends grow it was stated that at midnight Black Aggies eyes would glow red. The legends kept growing and it was stated that if a person looked into Black Aggies gaze, they would be struck blind. The legend went that is a pregnant woman were to pass the shadow of Black Aggie, the woman suffer a miscarriage. The stories and legends of Black Aggies kept getting weirder, a college fraternity wanted to include Black Aggie in their initiation rites, all fun and games no harm right?, some of the stories claim that one student was found dead the following morning, He had died of fright. After the death of the student the news spread like wildfire. It kept getting worse, people would come to the cemetery and write on the statue, one even cut off one of her arms and claimed that the statue had given him the arm. The family had finally had enough. They took the monument down and turned her over to the Smithsonian Institute. The Smithsonian claimed that they never received her. It seems that they gave her to the National Museum of American Art. Black Aggie now sits at the Federal Courts Building in Washington, near a rear courtyard of the Dolly Madison House. I wonder if her eyes still glow red at midnight.

One night in the late 50’s, a group of us met, as prearranged by one of our friends, Arthur (now a psychiatrist, then needing one). Most of us had our dates with us and we met at midnight at Black Aggie. We got out of the cars and milled about, not knowing why we were there except for the Black Aggie experience. All of a sudden, from behind Aggie herself, came a ghostly figure. It was Arthur, all dressed in white, with his shirt buttoned over his head so he looked like a headless ghost, running wildly and screaming at us. Needless to say, he was developing future patients! Everyone panicked, screamed and left in a hurry.

This was a memorable experience! Fifty years later I’m still telling the story…

Stories I can't tell!

The photo is a peignoir set. It's part of the following story.

Now that I’ve been doing this for so long, I’m beginning to have to think about what to write. Yesterday, while I was being stood up for lunch (that’s another story), I had the time to write down (with a pen and paper, a novelty) stories I needed to do. I reread all my stuff today and found at least one story I had already written. Good thing I looked. When you start repeating yourself in life, it’s a sign of age or how boring you really are, however, when you do it for a larger audience, you begin to erode that audience.

What I realized was that I had innumerable stories I can not tell. Those that are about me are not things I’d be willing to put out there for the ages, especially ones I do not want my younger kids or my wife (who never read this, they say) to see. However, some of them could cause law suits and involve people looking to hire hit men and it all would focus back on me.

This leads me to stories about others who can not be named but I could sort of disguise their identities and maybe I have a good one or two suitable for publication.

I was at a banquet many years ago (there I go with one about me!) in a big restaurant in Kansas City. The table was very long with tons of people and the company was lovely and everyone was drinking. It was much like a lot of my time in Kansas City.

I was seated with my wife (at the time) across from me and a visiting artist (whose name is lost in time) sitting on my left. All other characters have faded from memory but the ones mentioned. The visiting artist next to me was rubbing her hand on my inside left thigh while I was having conversations with others, including my wife. We were quite crowded together and I couldn’t move, nor did I want to I guess. The only part of me that moved was quite involuntarily.

The story of the parking lot at experience at Forbidden City was already explained in a previous post. If you haven’t read it, it’s a must see. It’s called Forbidden City memories and it was done on May 7.

My friend’s first or second wife was a hair dresser and worked in a shop. She made lots of money at this business, not because she was a great hair dresser, but because she had a secondary business in the basement working on pubic hair for women.

Now this was in the late 60.s and not at all like today. There was no effort to improve nature for most people. She had a studio in the basement of the shop where she did special treatments for those who were interested which included, but was not limited to bleaching, coloring and shaping pubic hair.

I have no other comment here.

I remember having a friend (a girl) and being at her house. This would have been in the 50’s. I was never there by myself, it was always with a small group, as she was going out with a high school friend. The unusual thing about this was her parents.

I know, like all parents, we have some impact on our kids’ friends. I look fondly back on my memories of some of my friends’ parents, and not so fondly on others. However, this girl had a unique family.

Her mother (we were always there at night) would always appear in a peignoir set. In those days, this was a night gown and robe, sort of a sheer thing, usually reserved for sexy fashion shots and late night trysts. It’s what young women wore on their honeymoon night. Her father, as the evening wore on, would calmly remove his pants and prance about in his shorts and an undershirt or t-shirt for a while and they would say they were going off to bed, and they would.

We were always startled!

The depth of my stories not to be told continues to vex me, so I have included some of those I can think I can tell. I am sure there will be more to come.

Social Kissing

I have quite a time with social kissing.

Now I like kissing as much as the next guy (just not kissing the next guy) but sometimes it’s a tough call. Do or don’t I? Do I go in for the kiss or hold my ground? What about violating social space? What about business kissing, a new sport?

It used to be you kissed you Aunts or maybe your cousins and that was it! OK, sometimes your parents like at graduation or something.

But your friends?

Your business acquaintances?

Other guys?

OK, I exaggerate, maybe, but friends at dinner parties? I kiss the ladies, but what about new people? I seem to meet them going in and kiss them going out.

Let’s say a word about air kisses. What is that? A cheek kiss gone awry?

What about the possibility of the wandering tongue? Is such a thing possible? Will it happen? And then, what is your response?


I will admit to having it happen only once, it was my birthday and I was kissed and there was tongue movement. What to do? Truthfully I had trouble sleeping. It was a Friday night and I had to see her again on Monday.




You probably know this was a long time ago, as if it were now, I would not be writing it in a blog for everyone to see. No, I was not married when this happened, but still, it was social kissing.




If you are reading this post and are now intent on slipping me the tongue the next time you see me, please remember that I will need some warning as it may be over stimulating for my heart!

A few years ago in the New York Times they wrote:




April 6, 2006 New York Times

It can happen to anyone. You want to give more than a businesslike handshake as a greeting, and a hug seems disconcertingly personal. You lean in to bestow the compromise — a peck on the cheek — and the person turns her head, and suddenly you're bumping noses or even brushing lips and teeth.
That's what happened to Margery Colloff, a Manhattan lawyer, when she was introduced to a more senior lawyer at a dinner party.
"I went for a peck on the right cheek, but he was zooming in from the left," she recalled. "And I literally crashed into his teeth."
The social kiss is unpredictable, agreed R. Couri Hay, the society editor at Hamptons magazine.
"I never kiss on the first meeting," he said, "but if someone offers a kiss, I feel I have to be polite and take it. Generally I really don't want to be covered in lipstick." The kiss "has been dumbed down," Mr. Hay said. "It is supposed to be a sign of affection, but I've seen people recoil when they see someone they don't even know coming in to lick their cheek."
Despite the awkwardness, the cheek, or social, kiss is displacing the handshake, once the customary greeting in American social and business circles. It may be a growing Latin influence, an aping of European manners, the influx of women in the workplace or just a breakdown of formality: no one seems to know. It's not just celebrities smacking the air or diplomats puckering up with the European style double kiss or Soprano family wannabees mimicking a sign of forced fealty.
Smooching one or both cheeks can be discombobulating in a society where the impersonal handshake or even the more distant nod is the most familiar greeting. Kiss protocol is so routinely bungled that it was parodied in a short video that the fashion designer Kenneth Cole used in February to unveil his autumn collection. The video shows how a young woman's efforts to bestow the affectation end in repeated disaster.
The awkwardness — and inevitability — of the social kiss has led to strategies to deal with it. "I position my face just slightly to the side," said Jeff Elsass, a Pilates instructor at the BioFitness Center in Manhattan, who is frequently greeted with kisses during his workday, "then I wait and see what the other person is going to do. That slight turn of the head can take you past the lip and the cheek."
If being bussed on the cheek is way too intimate, some advise that sticking your hand out firmly — keeping a straight elbow — is the best way to show yourself willing to shake hands and nothing more.
That's what Mr. Hay did at a nightclub opening in February, then added his own follow-through.
"A woman was coming in for the kiss, so I took a step back and then put my hand out in front of me," he said. "I turned left and kept going in one continuous movement, like a dance step, to escape."
While the handshake still holds sway in big corporations, said Barbara Pachter, who heads an etiquette-training firm in New Jersey, the kiss has migrated into areas like sales, where it can denote a warm relationship that encourages buying. Still, figuring out where the limits are can present problems, she noted.
"I had one pharmaceutical saleswoman client — young and attractive — who would kiss and hug her clients," Ms. Pachter said. "Then she saw one doctor at dinner and gave him a kiss and hug. His wife didn't appreciate that, and it was not appropriate."
The kiss is "happening more and more," agreed Peggy Post, a spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute founded by the doyenne of etiquette. "We're much more informal in everything from the clothes we wear to how we greet people."
Ms. Post advocates the handshake and agrees that it's better "to steer clear of kissing people of the opposite sex, which can be misconstrued in some cases." This is especially true on first meetings. Later, kissing as a greeting depends on the relationship, she and others said.
At one time the handshake had to be initiated by a woman before the man would extend his hand, Ms. Post noted. That's long past since most women in the work force don't hesitate to extend their hand in greeting.
"The more powerful person is the one who determines the amount of physical space," said Ann E. Fuehrer, a professor of psychology and women's studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. "They are taking the initiative to determine the degree of proximity."
Sarah Felix, 27, a features editor at Good Housekeeping, remembered a cheek-and-lip collision with a former boss, which she found unsettling because, she said, "there is always a certain amount of tension in that gesture between an older man and a younger woman."
P. M. Forni, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, who wrote "Choosing Civility: The 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct" (St. Martin's, 2002), said, "You can use the kiss to overpower a person." But, Professor Forni said, "in an age when there are all these prohibitions on physical contact, such as putting an arm around someone's shoulder, we are looking for a way of physical contact that is beyond reproach."
He added: "The social kiss is a gentle reminder that we are physical beings. It is face-to-face encounters that make us human."
In Mediterranean countries, he said, "there is less of a stigma when it comes to touching," but American men are still tentative. While President Bush bestowed kisses on Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings when they were appointed to his cabinet, his public goodbye last week to Andrew H. Card Jr., his longtime chief of staff, consisted of very brief backslapping.
"Social kisses can be a nonverbal signal that you are embraced and respected," observed Pamela S. Eyring, the director of the Protocol School of Washington. "Still, they should be reserved for friends."
Some believe that cheek kissing simply codifies welcoming behavior. "Cheek kisses are customs of politeness, not more," said Polly Platt, the director of Cultural Crossings in Paris, a training service for corporate managers.
The double kiss is frequently used in the diplomatic world, which has adopted the two-cheek European version as a compromise between the kissier (three or four times) approach used by some Continentals and the tepid one-kiss welcome.
Donald B. Ensenat, the United States chief of protocol, said he greets women with the double kiss but men with a handshake, a pat on the back or an embrace, depending on their relationship.
"I'm from New Orleans," Mr. Ensenat said. "I was used to one kiss. It's a Southern thing to give a cheek peck, so it wasn't hard to get used to two kisses."
The social kiss may have roots going back to Roman times, some academics believe. Its popularity has waxed and waned. In the early decades of the 20th century, it was mostly seen among the aristocracy and spread gradually after World War II, gathering speed as the traditional handshake was deemed stodgy.
Even so, confusion often reigns because there is no set formula for social kissing. The French, for example, kiss on both cheeks — one kiss each — although in a few regions it is the double-double kiss with two on each cheek. The Belgians, the Dutch and even the dour Swiss go for the triple kiss. If you can't keep that straight and need a refresher, the lip balm company Blistex has a rundown of kissing customs on its website, www.blistex.com, under the heading Global Lip Customs.
In most countries the social kiss begins with the right cheek, probably because most people are right-handed and, according to a German study in 2003, most people tilt their heads to the right when heading for a lip kiss. So it follows that they would lean right for a cheek kiss.
National customs are reflected in the diplomatic world, but that does not mean it is easy to learn them, Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state, wrote in her 2003 memoir, "Madam Secretary." While she typically got a single peck on the cheek from foreign ministers, she wrote, "in Latin America the maneuver was complicated by the fact that in some countries they kiss on the left and in some on the right."
She added, "I could never remember which, so there were a lot of bumped noses."
She took it in stride, but others who accidentally encounter noses, lips and cheeks less often find it more unsettling.
Ms. Colloff, for example, said that after knocking into the other lawyer, "I was so embarrassed that I pretended throughout dinner that it had not happened.
"And he, a perfect gentleman, did the same."