Snow Storm

This is a big story, and I just read through 190 of mine to see if I told this tale before, and I can’t find it. It was a life changing experience for me and a great adventure and memory.

It was the winter of 1959 (I think) and I was set to go out with my friends Alan and Edgar (the one we rescued from the hospital in an earlier story) with dates, to do something. Edgar was in a cast and was less than moveable.

Alan was going out with Michael (this was the 50’s and Michael was a girl!) and I was going out with my girlfriend Toby. Edgar had a date with maybe Anita, but we did end up at her house, or maybe Edgar didn’t have a date, it’s still a bit unclear.

It had started to snow and Alan was coming by to pick me up, as he was driving. My parents thought I was nuts to be going out in the snow, but I was fool hardy and went, with just a sport coat and no overcoat or boots, out into the big world.

We went to Anita’s house and decided to stay as it was snowing pretty hard and Edgar had his cast. Later in the evening, having second thoughts, Alan decided to take Michael home and asked me to go with him as it was bad out and besides, Anita didn’t feel comfortable being left alone with Edgar, as her parents were out at business.

Alan and I drove to Michael’s house which was pretty far, dropped her off and returned to Anita’s neighbourhood. As we turned into the neighborhood, off of the main street, we were stopped by snow banks and couldn’t move. After an hour or two of pushing, shoveling etc., tired and weary, we walked the few remaining blocks back to Anita’s, having given up the possibility of moving the car. The snow was up to our knees!

When we retuned to the house, we were half dead and our friends thought we had died! They were glad to see us but were of course disappointed that we were stuck. Anita’s parents had called and were furious that she had boys at the house and that they were stuck miles away, unable to return as well. I called my parents, as did we all and they were concerned as well but understood that we couldn’t leave Edgar, nor could we get out.

Needless to say that in the 50’s, no orgy would take place, and the three boys slept in the living room while the two girls slept upstairs. Anita’s parents never did calm down and I, luckily, left the next morning with my girlfriend Toby, and walked to her house where I spent a wonderful week as the houseguest of her very nice parents who quite understood. Schools in Baltimore stayed closed for a week and it was Friday before my father could come and get me.

Eventually, Alan’s car was shoveled ou,t and Edgar was driven home. I had the time of my life and was deeply in love, as only a kid can be.

In 1977, about 20 years later, I was at a Christmas party with Anita and her family and she introduced me to her mother. When she heard who I was she became upset, and wanted to confront me for staying at their house when they weren’t home in the winter of 1959! I was a 35 year old father of three boys and was not interested in her rambling!

Chartless

Chartless by Emily Dickinson

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet now I know how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given

These were the words I spoke to my dog Max as we walked last night at about nine o’clock in the dark, rainy streets while he was looking for the perfect place to go! I have no idea when I fist heard these but it was in high school I guess, and have seldom used them since, but as he looked for his spot, this came out of my mouth and stopped me cold!

I was walking down a dimly lit, wet street quoting poetry to my dog in relationship to his bowel movements! School had some influence on me!

I have written before about the parts of my public education that were the most meaningful to me, and clearly these things are a personal matter, in that each person gathers from life the things we seem to want or need. For me it was art, music, shop and English literature.

I think the math I needed was learned by the sixth grade and the science was never really learned. My knowledge of geography is nil, and everything else seems dimly lit.

But, I can quote Emily Dickinson, and sing weird songs at the drop of a hat for no apparent reason like the Erie Canal Song:

I’ve got a mule,
Her name is Sal,

Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.

She's a good old worker

And a good old pal,

Fifteen years on the

Erie Canal.

We've hauled some barges in our day

Filled with lumber, coal and hay

And ev'ry inch of the way I know

From Albany to Buffalo.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

We better get along

On our way, old gal,

Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

Cause you bet your life

I'd never part with Sal,

Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.

Git up there, mule, here comes a lock,

We'll make Rome 'bout six o'clock.

One more trip and back we'll go

Right back home to Buffalo.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal.

Low Bridge, ev'rybody down,

For it's Low Bridge,

We're coming to a town!

You can always tell your neighbor,

You can always tell your pal,

If you've ever navigated

On the Erie Canal

I know this one is from high school music and there are others for sure.

Why do we remember such stuff?

On a white board in a studio in the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in 1959, it said in a childish scrawl, “Tintoretto is Queer!” Why do I remember that!

There are so many of these things in my head that make no sense, that I needed a blog just to get it all out! After more than 190 posts I surprise myself by the never ending story!

I know that Lisa, my secretary for a short while in Detroit, who was the straightest person in that school, loved the erotic novels of Ann Rice, writing under the name of A. N. Roquelaure. There are only three of them so I’m sure she read other stuff as well but I kept this factoid in my head.

After a dance at the high school, our English long term substitute, Doris Seipe, had her classes come back to her house and she served English muffin pizzas, the first time I ever tasted such an invention.

I can’t remember my date but I remember the pizza!

I can go on but I am rambling. The stories will never stop (I hope) but these are the kind of little details that are stuck in my head…

The Hay Ride from Different Perspectives, Four Other Views

My Dear Chronicler,

I recall this Fall sojourn at least once each fortnight. Three trucks of questionable origin and condition. Hay bales stacked two high on the perimeter and a depth of one for our ''floor.'' The purpose was to ''make-out'' on the cool and cozy return from Catoctin State Park.

We all gathered beneath the Koontz Creamery Sign that acted as the Sphinx of Druid Park Circle (Reisterstown parted from Park Heights). The inchoate, at that time, was the relentless question/statement : "For the Carriage Trade". I later understood the play on ''carriage trade'' while reading the ill fated tale of Daisy Buchanan at the whim of Jay Gatsby.

The day was filled with scenes and activities out of "Picnic" & "Our Town" with a touch of "Oklahoma". Food appeared. From whence I do not know. (Ask Ken W.) There was innocent and naive frolicking. Games involving balls, birdies, nets and imagination.CONFESSION: I could not take my gaze from a watermelon cooling in one of the many streams and brooks. For reasons that remain with Oedipus and my analyst, I grabbed this unattended emerald beauty that promised juicy joy ''red to the rind", lifted it skyward as if possessed by the twin spirits of Elmer Gantry and King Kong. Smashed it on one of the rocks that had nestled it. When the owner raced over, I strangely felt no fear. I admitted my wrong, but could offer not a wink of reason. He saw something in my posture or gaze; in a clear modulated voice he thought I should pay its monetary worth. The dollar was rumpled and the quarter shiny as I extracted them fom my dungarees--BL--before Levi's.

I walked back to Phyllis who was out of view.

L'chiam, Be Well, Do Good,

Arthur

ps Camp David, named after Eisenhower's son, shredded the once languorous pastoral of Catoctin

I'm pretty sure it was 1957 and Arthur reminisces seem strangely familiar-- like dusting off and opening a long-ago forgotten book that was important to you as a very young man-in-training.

I don't remember the watermelon, nor Arthur's Elmer Gantry cum King Kong, but I surely would have loved to have seen that (Elmer Gantry was one of my favorite books, along with Arrowsmith-- I guess Sinclair Lewis really had my number).

Anyway, I was preoccupied on that hay ride because I think it was when I first met Sharon and a girl named Jane, whose last name escapes me (help anyone?), but who was very nice. So I went home thinking about them both. Thanks for dusting off that book,

Ken

I remember the hayrides and can even picture being on one of them. I think I was with a woman (girl) named Rochelle, but can't recall any other details. I remember it being an all day sort of thing out in the beautiful Maryland countryside.

Joel

Wonderful memories, guys. The one visual memory that comes to mind was lyingcomfortably in the hay and gazing up at Arthur's date Sue, I believe was her name, though I may very well be mistaken. Anyway, I was entirely entrancedby her nubile physical charms. Embarrassingly, I can't remember who my own date was.

Another thing: We sang a lot. Thanks for tugging my memory strings.

Mark

The Hay Ride

I remember that it was Summer, 1956 or possibly 1957, but we had a hay ride. It was the SED Hay Ride (Sigma Eta Delta Fraternity) and it may have been a pledge class event, but I will need to check with some experts out there who were in attendance. It will be cleared up.

I have no idea if I had a date or if we didn’t take them, but there were boys and girls in attendance, and we went somewhere in the back of a hay wagon (or probably a truck filled with hay) and we went somewhere in Pennsylvania, I think. It was a big swimming hole, I believe, not an actual pool, but the costs included the ride and the swimming.

I remember being out for a very long day in the sun, and this would have been my first (and last) such event (in my life) and I had no idea about sun and time etc. Being fair skinned, perhaps six to eight hours in the sun would not have been a good idea.

I remember there was pizza involved at the end, probably back in Baltimore.

OK, so what’s the story? Why even tell it?

Because while I can’t remember if it was first or second or third degree burns I suffered, but I was in pain, both of my shoulders were completely scabbed over within a day or two, I was red over all my body, and I had to stay indoors, in the dark, for a week or two!

In the days before all the information we currently have about skin and sun, I learned things the hard way!

Razor Wars

In May, I wrote twice about Ockham’s razor. Today I want to write about regular razors, the kind you shave with and the kind everyone knows about.

When I started to shave, we used double edged blades in a safety razor, a nice chrome one with a screw bottom thing in order to change blades. We used to change them when they seemed dull. Then, I found the modern injector blade, a mechanical marvel which had only one useable side but was very sleek, it seemed. Some of us bought the British marvel the Roll’s Razor, a left over from some war which held its own stone and strop and blade in a neat little case and could be sharpened over and over forever. It didn’t work too well for me, and I was cut up a lot, but I figured it worked better under war conditions.

I did try electric ones several times but to tell the truth, I hated them and I have no story there.

Now, we move on to disposable razors. These are made by lots of companies, but my favorite became the Gillette Custom Plus Pivot Disposable Razors. I bought them for about $8 for a bag of 10, or about $.80 a piece. These have become harder to find as Gillette and the other companies go into new worlds. I have purchased them twice at Costco, in a 52 pack (about a year’s worth I guess) for $28, or about $.54 a piece.

While we were away in Montreal recently, I became aware that I took only one used razor with me, and since my wife was going out to the drug store, I asked her to pick up a disposable razor. We were in downtown Montreal, and not near a big box store, so she had to buy whatever she found. She bought a pack of Schick Quattro Razors. They have four blades and System performance in a disposable razor with a rubber guard bar, lubrication strip, optimized blade span and more comfort less irritation (this is from their web site).

I loved them! They were magic! OK, let’s figure this one out.
They last a very long time, about a week plus with continuing comfort where my poor Comfort Pluses go for four days. (I know, 52 don’t last a year, I think it’s a marketing image.)

There was a problem, they cost $12.75 for three, or about $4.25 a piece, which is probably more than the original chrome, last a lifetime, permanent razor cost in the 50’s when I bought it!

A little liquid can cause many problems...

This little foot is not mine!

A little liquid can cause many problems. Slipping on it can cause a major fall. I, however, did not slip on it, I ingested it, and it caused me to hurt myself.

It was Saturday evening, just after five o’clock, and I was getting ready to go out to a dinner party, when the idea hit me that more than anything else, I’d like a drink. So I poured a very generous Black Russian, and quietly sipped my drink while watching the Food Channel. I decided to go upstairs and get ready, and walked down the hall and smashed the little toe on my left foot into the stair railing. This was done with great gusto and hurt mucho! I think I broke my toe!

My wife has been hounding me ever since to go and get an x-ray and see what happened. “Go to the Doctor, Go to the Hospital!” she exclaims, but to no avail.

I know they always tell everyone that there is nothing they can do. I have taped the little toe to the rest of the foot and it seems to help.

On a question the Doctor website it said:

Typically, the person doing this has caught the little toe against a door, or a table leg, running in barefeet. The toe is often broken, but it doesn't need to be to be painful, and strapping to its buddy is the most commonly recommended treatment. Bruising and swelling is also very common, and sometimes causes more concern, but even then the problem is not too bad…..
Apart from strapping it, the toe should be kept elevated, and ice packs applied. The healing process effectively starts the moment you injure it, and steadily improves over the next few weeks(!). By about 4 weeks the bulk of the pain is gone...in the meantime some painkillers and open shoes should make life a little easier...Sadly you will now find out exactly how often one knocks one's little toes throughout the day! It is very rare for these fractures not to heal (if that is what you have), but it can happen....

I limp around, and I do better with no shoes and socks, but that’s not really possible during the day. Lighter shoes work better for me and I still have some dog walking responsibilities.

As I said, “A little liquid can cause many problems!”

WWKD #2

My younger daughter came out of the shower and left the bathroom door open. The wired smoke alarm is outside of the bathroom door, and if you leave the door open, even with the exhaust fan running, the alarm will go off. This alarm, as opposed to the other battery powered ones in the house, sets off our dog Max. He goes bananas when he hears it, and is not bothered by the other ones, even the kitchen alarm which goes off when we open the heated stove.

Hearing Max carrying on downstairs, and having her parents yell at her to close the door, she grabbed a magazine and tried to fan the steam away from the alarm, and succeeded in knocking the alarm off the ceiling.

It stopped screaming of course, but was on the floor and the wires were hanging down.

I ran up and looked at it. The alarm was down, fallen out of it's holder, the wires had a connecter and they were still in one piece, but the electrical box it was connected to was also beginning to hang. This was not a good thing, and as I was going to work I figured I'd deal with it later.

The next morning I investigated, and the box was hanging, and upon further investigation, I realized the box was never correctly installed in 1983, when the house was built.

A long time electrician in the area told me some time ago that these houses were put up at a time when the builder used anyone he could get and some kid had probably done a lot of the work. The box in the basement was running at 80 amps rather then 100. We changed that later on. So, whoever had put this box in the ceiling did so by sticking it in and shimming it, rather than fixing it onto a joist.

The path was clear, in order to correctly repair this problem was to pull out the box, find a joist attach the box, cut a new hole, replace the alarm and repair the ceiling.

WWKD?

Using the Klaus repair ethic, I put the box back in, replaced the shims, used construction grade adhesive to secure the box to it's original place and refixed the alarm.

It works fine, and unless it's knocked out of the ceiling again, it's just fine!