Tom’s Two Cents: A Collection of Columns
By Tom M. Paolangeli
Copywrite 2011 by Tom M. Paolangeli
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Cover illustration by Spooks, used by permission.
Dedication
This collection is dedicated to Jim Bilinski, publisher of the Ithaca Times, and to my great first editor there, Kenny Berkowitz. Without the opportunity they gave me, and their continued support, none of this would exist.
Also special thanks to Leslie, for pushing me to “make it better,” and to her mother Margaret, for invaluable proof reading on my latter day columns. And especially many thanks to all the wonderful readers who sent notes or stopped me on the street to say how much they enjoyed a particular piece. That always made my day, and encouraged me to keep on writing.
***
Angels, Saints and Santa Claus
Part Four: Musings on Miscellanea
I Was Attacked by a Mongolian Deathworm
Introduction
Rather late in life I discovered the joy of writing. I’d always been an avid reader, and had mild, short fantasies of one day becoming a writer, but one seemingly insurmountable problem loomed: I had absolutely no idea what to write about.
My first published work was motivated by the desire for free advertising. In the early 1990’s I was a Real Estate agent in Ithaca NY, and I made a deal with a local newspaper to write an advice column. I wasn’t paid for it, but I figured it was subtle advertising for my “expertise.” Thus “Ask the Real Estate Guy” was born.
In the column I answered readers’ questions. Well, that was the plan. In fact, no one ever actually sent me a question, so each week I’d just make them up. To the best of my knowledge I never got one single client from the column, but I really liked writing it.
With my typical flair for awful timing, I’d become a real estate agent just as the market tanked. Since you can’t make a living writing free columns, in the mid 1990’s a career change prompted a move to Stuart, Florida. To keep in touch with family and friends back north, I availed myself of the still rather new technology of email. I wrote about whatever was going on in my life, usually in a funny self-deprecating type of way.
I enjoyed the letter writing process, and I began to take a bit more time and care in telling my tales. I found great satisfaction in using just the right word, crafting just the right sentence. This was reinforced by the feedback I received. “I love getting your emails” spurred me on to make them even better. And slowly the thought formed - maybe I do have a knack for writing. I sure wasn’t ready to take on grand themes like war and peace or love and death, but I could handle a funny tale about a trip to the grocery store or canoeing through a swamp.
So I kept writing my emails, but thought about starting a grander project. Since the clichéd writing advice is “write what you know,” like millions of other aspiring writers I decided my first major work would be my memoir. I even had a unifying theme. I realized I could tell my life’s story by referencing the various automobiles I’d owned. Thus was born “My Life in Cars, An Autobiography.”
It was a fun project, a huge learning experience, and of course it sits in the corner gathering dust. I only sent it to one person, Leon Mandel, the editor and publisher of AutoWeek. I asked for his opinion and advice. He wrote back a very nice letter, saying he enjoyed reading my work, and I did seem to have a knack for writing, but I should realize that in the harsh world of publishing, a memoir from someone who wasn’t already famous was a tough, if not impossible sell. But keep writing!
So next, for reasons that now escape me, I decided to write a screenplay. I actually have a degree in Cinema from Ithaca College, but had never put it to good use. It overqualified me for my first out of college job as an Audio Visual Technician, and played little part in future forays into things like Sound Reinforcement, Rock and Roll Bands, Bird Song Tape Preservationist, Real Estate Sales, or my then current job with a company that manufactured oil and gas pump systems for industrial gas turbines.
When I attended Ithaca College, they didn’t offer a dedicated course in screenwriting. So I supplemented what little knowledge I had with voracious reading, and soon cranked out a series of screenplays that wowed no one and went nowhere.
I still wasn’t deterred. I was determined to find some modicum of success as a writer. Screenwriting is an extremely tough world to break into, especially from the East Coast, but maybe I’d have more success with novels?
And so after a few years of writing and sending out hundreds of queries I finally had my answer. No.
Okay, plan A, B and C didn’t work, so on to D. A move back to Ithaca in 2000 allowed me to audit a couple of writing courses at my old Alma Mater. Despite my literally being old enough to be a parent to my fellow students, I found they responded well and warmly to my personal essay efforts.
Fortified with that shot of confidence, I approached a local weekly paper, The Ithaca Times. I’d heard they were receptive to new (as in cheap) freelance writers. I met with then editor Kenny Berkowitz. Much to my pleasure, Kenny gave me a small assignment to see what I could do, and said we’d take it from there.
That first assignment was to do a short article about the upcoming Chili Festival. You didn’t need to be Dostoevsky to write that, so my work was judged acceptable. And most exciting to me, I was paid for it! I was now a professional! I had the check to prove it! Yeah, it was only $15, and it took me 6 hours to write the piece, but still…
I was given other assignments, and soon worked my way up to feature articles. One day I was asked to write about an upcoming Italian Heritage event planned for the local museum. After I wrote the article, I told Kenny I had something that complimented it. For my personal essay class I’d just written about my Italian grandmother. Kenny liked the essay, and agreed to run it. Though it appeared under a “Personal Opinion” heading, it was really the start of my eventual column, “Tom’s Two Cents.”
To try to shorten up this rambling tale, what basically happened next was I continued to get assignments from Kenny, but also submitted the occasional “Personal Essay” piece. These were usually funny stories taken from my life or the local news.
Then one day Kenny made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. How would I like my very own humor column?
It doesn’t get much better than that. So after a stumbling start at a name for the column, (“View From the Valley” was the title for a while) “Tom’s Two Cent’s” was born. I claimed two cents was all my opinion was really worth, and a few disgruntled readers doubted even that.
Usually the column was inspired by simple daily life in the rather interesting and unique city of Ithaca, NY. The bumper sticker that succinctly sums up Ithaca is “Ithaca: Ten Square Miles Surrounded by Reality.” (I wish I’d written that!) In Ithaca everyone has their own opinion, and you’re entitled to it. (I did write that one, but I’m not sure if it’s original.)
I wrote the column about once a month. Sometimes it was twice a month and sometimes a few months would go by without my writing anything. The columns were generally well received, and it always was a nice moment when strangers told me they enjoyed my work. I even won a few awards from the New York Press Association, so I could now claim to be an “award winning columnist.”
The years of writing spanned an incredibly tumultuous time for me. I went from being a part time to a full time father, I held a series of different jobs, one longtime relationship ended, but a new one began, and I moved from a city apartment to a country home. I can look back now and be happy where I ended up, but there sure were some difficult moments. Through it all, I tried to find something funny to write about.
As much as I enjoyed writing the column, after about nine years it was getting harder to come up with something on deadline, and I decided to dedicate my short window of daily writing time to other projects.
Let’s see, memoir, screenplays, novels, humor column…Well, I haven’t tried doing short stories yet…
But before I embark on that plan, (I think we’re up to plan “E”), I thought it would be fun to cull my columns for about 50 of my favorites, and share them with the big wide world outside of Ithaca.
There really is a world outside of Ithaca, right?
***
PART ONE: FAMILY AND MEMORIES
I had the wonderful opportunity to write about whatever I wanted. While that’s great for a writer, it makes it a bit harder when I put on my editor’s hat and try to figure out a way to best present them now. I could have just printed the column chronologically, but I hoped to find some organizing principles.
I finally came up with four very loosely labeled sections: Family and Memories, Ithaca, Silly Tom, and the catch-all, Musings on Miscellanea. These are rather broad categories, and often a column could have nicely fit in more than one section.
This first section contains some of my favorites. And while they are the most personal pieces, I was pleased and surprised by how often readers cited many of these as their favorites, too.
***
Madison Street Memories
February 2001. I consider this my first column. As mentioned in the Introduction, it was originally done for a Personal Essay class I was then taking at Ithaca College. The version that ran in the Times was shortened to meet their space needs. This is the full-length original.
Last fall I went to an Open House and searched for ghosts.
Anchoring the corner of Madison and Fifth Street, kitty corner from Conway Park, the house belonged to my Italian grandparents for 60 years. It was sold to strangers in 1994. The previously pristine property soon joined its neighbors in a downward property value spiral. Eventually a community renovation organization, Ithaca Neighborhood Housing, acquired the tired old house, and had just completed a major renovation.
They reconfigured it from an up/down duplex back to a single family. They uncovered hardwood floors that had been buried under gold-flecked linoleum and brown shag carpeting. They completely redid the outdated kitchen and bathrooms. They tore down extraneous walls and closets.
All in all they did a very nice job, and I’m happy they resurrected the property from the condition the previous owner had let it decay to.
But as I walked through, I felt something was missing. The basement was clean and open, but I missed the little side rooms with wine barrels that still reeked of the musty odor of homemade wine last bottled decades ago. Gone too were the makeshift shelves neatly stacked with Mason jars containing mysterious red and green vegetables from the garden. Gone was the worn brown leather strap that hung in the bathroom, for sharpening straight razors. Gone from the kitchen was the immense chrome and white art deco stove that cooked heaps of pasta and tomato sauce. Gone was the patched tin ceiling in the dining room, appropriate theatrical cover for innumerable mealtime dramas.
It may have started out as a small, square, two-story house, but later additions sprouted in a haphazard way, defying any easy symmetry. A wraparound porch with rocking chairs provided a safe reviewing stand from which to watch the world go by. The house was, and still is sheathed in grayish blue asphalt siding, the rage in 1948, that has more than made up for in longevity what it lacked in aesthetics.
When I was growing up in the sixties, the neighborhood still had strong ties to its working class Italian past. The Cacciotti’s on one side, the Turco’s on the other, with Iacovelli’s, Massicci’s, Ciaschi’s, Saccucci’s and a whole host of vowel ending names nearby. Most of those Italian families are now long gone. Their sons and daughters, even if they stayed around Ithaca, completed the second generation immigrant climb to newer homes in nicer neighborhoods.
The old neighborhood is still working class, but across Fifth Street, where Geiger’s Corner Grocery and a dozen houses once stood, there’s a low- income housing project. Basketball, not baseball, is the game of choice in Conway Park.
My grandparents arrived in this country via Ellis Island in 1926. They headed straight to Ithaca, joining my grandfather’s brother and about 300 other native born Italians who’d settled there. Many came from the same small Italian village, Carpineto, about 60 miles south of Rome. My grandparents bought the Madison Street house in 1929, not a great year to take out a mortgage.
They raised three kids, the youngest my father. They both pounded out links for automobile timing chains at Morse Chain, the monolithic, many windowed factory that sprawled across South Hill. They never owned a car, nor did most of their neighbors, who joined them for their 2 ½ mile walk to work each day. In winter, they attached cleats to their shoes to better navigate the icy hill.
My grandfather, “Pa,” died in the mid 1960’s. I was too young to know him well. All I remember is a frail old man who smoked cigarettes and spoke with a heavy Italian accent. He always sat in the living room, in his brown leather-backed rocking chair. There was no doubt this was his chair. If by some rare chance the chair was vacant, it never entered my mind that anyone else could sit there. It was Pa’s Chair, simple as that.
My grandmother made do with a smaller cloth covered rocker to his left, which we were allowed to sit in. What the heck, she was always in the kitchen anyway.
“Ma” was a short, strong, stocky, typical Italian “noni” whose main mission in life was to make sure we were never hungry. Italian superstitions meshed seamlessly with her Catholic faith. When my grandfather died, she wore nothing but black for years. She lived alone in the downstairs portion of the house, renting out the upstairs, until she passed away about 15 years ago. Until her last few years, she kept two magnificent gardens; one for flowers, one for vegetables. The remnant of a grape arbor in the backyard was a reminder of the time when they use to make their own wine.
My father would send us kids down to help Ma out around the house. For a long time her lawn mower was an ancient, heavy, green push mower, the kind with helical blades that only moved when you provided the muscle power. It was hard to push, and would quickly clog up with grass still damp from the morning dew. The trick was to cut the lawn after the dew evaporated, but before it got too hot. The problem was, when Ma wanted the lawn mowed, she wanted it mowed right now. If we dallied at all getting there, we’d find her outside with the mower, sweating, the job more than half done. “Justa do a little for you,” she’d smile and say. “You finish.”
It was the same in the winter. When the sidewalks needed shoveling, they needed shoveling now. “Justa clear path,” she’d say. “You finish.”
We’d also paint for her. Her porch, garden fence, garage, all must have had twenty coats of paint and counting. Ma liked things clean, neat and nice.
Besides the fifty cents or buck she’d slip us, despite our very feeble protests, the real payoff for helping out was the wonderful lunches and she’d cook. Back home it was peanut butter and jelly or Campbell’s soup at noon, but at Ma’s we’d get a fresh, hot, homemade meal. I remember coming into her house, myself reeking of fresh cut grass or turpentine, and being overwhelmed by the wonderful, heavenly aromatic smells.
Ma’s tiny but immaculate kitchen was a warm oasis filled with the scent of garlic and onions sautéed in olive oil, the yeasty smell of homemade pasta and bread, and day long simmering tomato sauce. In my mind’s eye, the kitchen is always awash with sunlight. Her wooden breadboard, on which she’d pound out the dough, had depressions worn in it from a lifetime of use. As an exercise in futility, we once tried to write down her recipes as she baked. But a “handful of this” and a “little bit of that until it feels like this” just doesn’t translate well.
The dining room was the symbolic and actual heart of the house. You had to go through the dining room to get anywhere else in the house, except to my grandmother’s bedroom, which was off of the living room and off-limits to us kids anyway. You entered the living room through two double French doors on the south side wall. The basement stairs and the spare bedroom were on the east side, the bathroom was on the north side, and the west side opened up into the kitchen. A huge white Frigidaire nestled in the corner near the kitchen, its freezer packed with enough frozen food to get halfway through the next Great Depression. The canned goods in the basement and the bountiful vegetable garden would take care of the rest.
From the time I was born until my adult years, my family would gather in that dining room once a week for a feast. The script seldom varied. Ma would insist we all needed to eat more food. “Manga, manga.” Often, whether you wanted it or not, she’d spoon extra helpings on your plate. My father would argue with her. “They’ll ask for more if they want it!” As the “discussion” heated up, she’d mix in more Italian with her English. Finally, in exasperation she’d let loose a torrent of Italian that ended, much to my and my siblings delight, with a definitive “Ahh, shit!” I soon learned to take skimpy first servings, in order to not insult and provoke her by refusing seconds and thirds.
The menu seldom varied, either. My father is perhaps the only full blooded Italian in the world to somehow retain a lifelong abhorrence of cheese. Which puts a bit of a cramp in your typical Italian cuisine. Perhaps because he was the baby in the family, my grandmother coddled this and his other fickle food preferences. Thus we had either spaghetti and meatballs, or tomato and beef broth based soup, or cube steak with home fries.
But what Ma could do with a limited menu. She would take a cheap cut of meat, normally pretty tough stuff, and miraculously fry it up in a mixture of olive oil, garlic and onions until it was tender and juicy. Vegetables, fresh from the garden, would be served in a simple salad, needing nothing more than an olive oil and vinegar dressing. And always little loaves of fresh bread, crusty on top, soft and warm in the middle. It was pure culinary magic that no one in the family has been able to duplicate.
One ill-fated day Ma decided to risk my father going hungry and departed from the usual fare. She served a soup with rice instead of noodles. Unfortunately, all five of us grandkids picked that evening to come down with a stomach flu. Though it was just an unfortunate unrelated coincidence, she never served the rice dish again.
Ah, that was then. Now, Ma’s radiant gardens, the cool shade of the grape arbor, the smell of old wine and new bread, and the racket of uncountable Sunday dinners are just fast fading memories, temporarily intensified by the trip through a renovated house. Like the old Mason jars stuffed with garden vegetables, I try to preserve. Yet another new family will create their own memories and traditions at 602 Madison Street. But in this transitory age, I doubt their roots will run as long, wide and deep.
***
Summer of ‘65
June of 2001
I’m practicing to be an old fart. “When I was your age,” I tell my 11 year old son, “We didn’t have these violent computer games. All this simulated blood, guts, mayhem and carnage.” What I don’t tell him, though, is that we had the real thing.
I remember one bright early summer morning when I was 10 years old, my four siblings and I were sitting around in our pj’s, crunching Cocoa Puffs, while the Three Stooges tutored us in new ways to torture each other. Suddenly we heard the muffled sound of a distant impact. “Did you hear that? Do you think…?” In a minute the sirens started, so we’d excitedly threw on some clothes and pedaled our polo bikes up Clinton Street to where Prospect crossed Aurora.
I know it sounds morbid, but as a kid, part of the excitement of many an Ithaca summer back in the 1960’s was the runaway truck accidents on Aurora Street hill.
Holy cow! This was a big one. One, two, three, four telephone poles dangled from their wires, severed at their base. A thick black electric cable smoldered on the ground. Further up the hill a demolished white four door Plymouth Valiant sat in a puddle of broken glass. Near the base of the hill, where Hudson Street veers off from Aurora, the mangled cab of a semi was on it’s side, crushed against a huge tree. Rescue workers swarmed around it; the driver must still be inside! Oily dark fluids trickled away from the truck, staining the street. The trailer lay another 100 feet downhill, sprawled on its side across the Aurora Street bridge. Broken brown bottles were strewn about, and the yeasty stinky stench of beer filled the air. A huge crowd of all ages gathered while rescue operations began, talking and speculating excitedly.
I guess I was still too young to really comprehend the pain and suffering that usually accompanied these accidents. People were seriously hurt. People died. But what does that mean to a ten year-old? Later that summer, when my grandfather passed away, death finally became more personal. I began to understand.
But standing on Aurora Street right then, what I mostly felt was a fascination with the carnage. The splintered telephone poles, the crushed and twisted metal, the shattered glass. A vivid example of the mysterious powerful forces lurking in the adult world beyond the playground. Forces I feared, but wanted to understand.
The tree that stood at the corner of Aurora and Hudson bore huge scars. For years it was the immovable object that kept many a runaway truck from plunging through downtown. The trail of destruction up the hill attested to the violent forces bearing down on it. Yet the tree held firm. A living thing, part of nature, defying what man threw at it. How inconceivably, impossibly strong it had to be.
We joined the crowd gathered across the street from the wrecked cab. I remember being fascinated by one of the rescue workers. He was probably a volunteer fireman, because he didn’t have any sort of official uniform, just a white tee shirt and green work pants. He had a huge belly, so he belted his pants real low below his stomach. Then he bent over to work on the truck. We nudged each other and tried to keep from laughing – his butt crack was showing!
Then, from somewhere deep within the wreckage, a scream of pain. The buzzing crowd became silent. Hearing the driver’s agony made it much more real to me. I was moved one step closer to empathy.
Acetylene torches were brought in. They had to cut the cab apart to get the driver out. I angled for a better view. I could see an arm, a shoulder. Is that blood? They finally freed him and loaded him onto a stretcher and wheeled him to the ambulance. Bloody white tee shirt, bandaged head. But alive!
With the injured driver removed, the tension lifted, and the scene became almost festive. Telephone repairmen began splicing hundreds of colorful shredded wires. NYSEG planted temporary telephone poles, and began untangling their twisted power lines. Large tow trucks angled to remove the mangled cab and trailer.
The trailer had dumped hundreds of cases of beer on and over the Aurora Street bridge. City workers with big grins on their faces began to haul intact cases out of Six Mile Creek. Someone was going to have a heck of a party tonight.
By the end of the day all that remained were a few utility workers, scrape marks and black stains on the pavement, the smell of stale beer, and a fresh wound on the massive tree. I’d lost interest hours ago, and was off playing strike-out or hide and seek. That evening I made a truck out of Lego blocks and sent it toppling down the hallway stairs. Just to see how it smashed all apart.
***
When We Were Altar Boys
August 2002. This remains one of my favorite pieces due to some heartfelt notes I received from Father Gramkee’s friends and family after it ran. This is the original, slightly longer version.
A few weeks ago I was saddened to learn of the untimely death of a former Immaculate Conception parish priest, Father David Gramkee. What made his passing even more upsetting was that a few weeks prior, an old allegation of sexual misconduct resurfaced. All I know about the allegation is what I read in the newspaper; certainly not enough information for me to judge his culpability. But whatever the truth is, the dark cloud hanging over his last days made a sad occasion even sadder.
What I can say for sure about Father Gramkee is that when I was a young, rebellious teenager back in the late 60’s, he was a kind, thoughtful, intelligent priest who really seemed to care. He encouraged us Catholic school kids to question some of the rote catechism we’d been taught since kindergarten. You mean God isn’t necessarily an old man with a white beard sitting up in the sky, keeping track of our sins and totaling up the time we’ll spend in purgatory? (Minus time off for indulgences, of course.)
Father Gramkee encouraged us to ask tough questions, and expand our concept of God and Catholicism beyond simple childish stories. That endeared him to me, but at least one of the nuns suggested that perhaps he not stop by the school quite so often.
Like most good Catholic schoolboys, I was an altar boy. Probably because he was the youngest priest, (Ithaca was his first assignment), Gramkee was put in charge of us altar boys. We were glad; he was a lot more fun than the other fussy old priests.
There were two really great reasons to be an altar boy: weddings and funerals. Weddings, because everyone was so happy, and you usually received a cash tip, sometimes five or ten bucks. But funerals? Sad people, no tips. However, that was more than compensated for by the fact that you got out of school to serve a funeral mass.
We’d be pretending to pay attention to some boring geography lesson, when the PA system would click on and Sister Claire Francis would pronounce those magical words – “Two altar boys are needed for a ten o’clock funeral.” Arms shot up – me, me, me, please Sister Leo Marie, please, no not Nicky, he went last time, me, me me! Yesss!
So at exactly 9:40 we’d remind Sister, get our coats from the cloak room, (why was it always the “cloak room?” I never saw any cloaks in there; heck, I wasn’t even sure what a cloak was), and we’d quietly walk out of the school.
Freedom! Yeah! All right! We’d jump and joke and laugh our way down Buffalo Street, making faces at the unfortunate kids trapped in Central School. Then right on Albany, left on Seneca, past Petrillose Dry Cleaners, (now home of the Short Stop Deli), cross Geneva, and slip into the back door of the church.
Once in the church we entered the seemingly secret rooms behind the altar. One of our jobs was to prepare the cruets containing the sweet sacramental wine and water for Mass. Brian claimed he once took a swig from the wine bottle, but I didn’t dare do more than lick my fingers if I spilled some. That isn’t a sin, is it? Even if I spilled it kinda on purpose?
The first funeral mass I served was spooky, kinda scary, what with that big old coffin parked in the aisle, and the church filled with teary old people. But after a few funerals it started to become more routine. Which was dangerous.
Let’s face it: twelve-year-old boys are not exactly the most solemn and pious creatures in the world. Especially if one of them has gas.
And of course the more inappropriate it is to laugh, the harder it is not to. Even at a funeral. However, a withering look from the priest was always sufficient to immediately stifle our giggles. Even easy going Father Gramkee was strict and stern regarding our behavior on the altar.
One of the important altar boy tasks occurred at Communion time. Nowadays the priest usually places the communion wafer right into the receiver’s hands. But back then the nuns had us believing that for anyone but a priest to touch the sacred host was certainly a sin.
People knelt at the communion rail, and the priest walked along placing the host on their outstretched tongues. The altar boy’s job was to hold the “platen,” a shiny, flat metal plate with a handle, under the receiver’s chin, so that if there were a slipup, the communion host would land on the platen. At least that was the theory. It could be tense work. Remember, to a Catholic, that communion wafer wasn’t just symbolic bread, it was the actual sacred body of Christ. And who wants to be responsible for dropping Jesus on the floor?
One Sunday I was manning the platen while Father Gramkee passed out Communion. Things were going fine until he reached one elderly woman. As a thousand times before, Gramkee held up the host and said, “The body of Christ.” “Amen,” she replied. She closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and stuck out her tongue. Father carefully placed the host on her tongue, and we started to move on. But as the woman pulled her tongue in, the host hit the corner of her mouth. The host teetered precariously on the tip of her tongue. Oh no! I swooped back in with the platen, ready to make my catch. I’ll save you, Jesus! But in my zeal I jabbed the platen into the woman’s neck. Her head jerked back, her eyes flew open, and the sacred host shot forward.
I swung the platen and tried to catch the flying host. I managed to get under it, but the little round wafer landed on its edge, and started rolling. I fought to keep the rolling host in place, as nearby communicants looked on with alarm. The host rolled towards the edge of the platen, so I tipped it up. Then it rolled back the other way, so I tilted down, but overcompensated. No! The Blessed Body of Christ is falling! And it’s my fault. This is gonna mean serious time in purgatory, I just know it.
But suddenly, with miraculous, heaven-sent reflexes, Father Gramkee reached forward and snatched the host in midair. I’m saved! Or am I still doomed? Cringing, I peered up at towering Father Gramkee. He was a large priest, and I a very small altar boy. He gave me a stern look. I knew it. I’m doomed. Then, without cracking even a tiny smile, he winked at me. He then turned back to the woman and said, “Shall we try that again?”
***
Oh, Christmas Tree
December 2006. For obvious reasons this is a family favorite. It was also the easiest column I ever wrote. All I did was come home from the evening in question and write down what had just happened. Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up.
“Could you come over and give us a hand?”
My mom sounded calm enough on the other end of the phone, so I said I would later, as I was in the middle of a project.
“No, right now,” she insisted. “The Christmas tree is falling over, and I don’t know how much longer your father can hold it!”
There are definite benefits to living across the street from your parents. I get lots of leftovers and invitations to dinner. They get rapid response Christmas tree righting.
This is no minor service. You should understand that my parents live in an old house with ten foot high ceilings. Family tradition dictates that the Christmas tree must touch the ceiling. It also must be wide and dense, so they always have a huge, beautiful tree.
Except one unfortunate year, when I was six years old. My mother was ill, so for the first and only time, she let my father and I go and pick out the tree. The result was a scraggly, scrawny “Charlie Brown” type tree. You can tell when someone perusing our family album reaches the photos of that Christmas by the howls of laughter. Hey, it looked fine to me and my dad…
Anyway, I rushed over to relieve my father, who was standing half submerged in the branches of the fully decorated Christmas tree. Well, not fully, as more than a few bulbs had departed in the initial tipping.
As I took my post, my mom filled me in.
“It was perfect. But no, your father had to monkey with it.”
“It was leaning,” he said.
“It was not.”
“Yes, it was.”
“It was perfect. But he had to fiddle with the base, and luckily I was in here, because it started to fall over. I caught it, but I couldn’t hold it. So he grabbed it, and that’s when I called you.”
“It wasn’t straight. Move it a little to the left, Tom.”
My father circled the tree, checking the angle.
“Rudy, watch for the (crunch)… ornament.”
“#&*%!”
“Earlier he had me crazy about that star,” she said, pointing to the ornament topping the tree. “He climbed the ladder to put it on, but then he couldn’t find it. He was sure he’d dropped it into the tree, so I searched and searched the tree, getting all pricked and scratched, but no star.” She started laughing. “Tell him where it was.”
“On the blade,” he mumbled.
This made no sense to me. “Where?” I asked.
My father looked sheepish, and pointed to the ceiling fan, a few feet from the tree. “I forgot I’d set it on top of one the fan blades when I was up on the ladder.”
“Well,” I said, “at least you found it before you turned the fan on. Could have impaled someone.” Visions of the shooting star got us all giggling.
My father was now under the tree, trying to adjust the base. “Wait,” I said, I can’t tell if I’m holding it straight.”
“Cookie, stand back and see if it’s straight,” my dad said.
“A little to the left” she replied, “now a little bit toward you. There.”
“Are you sure?” my dad asked.
“Yes.”
With much mumbling and grumbling he tightened the base, and crawled out.
“Perfect,” my mom said.
My father circled the tree. “It’s not straight.”
“It is too!” my mom replied.
“No, look here from the side. See? It’s leaning backwards.”
“Well how could I tell that from the front?”
“&%^*!” my dad said. “Tom, lean it forward.”
“I can’t,” I said. “You tightened the base down, remember?”
“#!*%!”
My father went back under the tree and loosened the base again. We tilted the tree back and forth, consulted with my mother, and finally he tightened everything down. I released my grip and stood back.
“Well, that looks great,” I said.
“Yes, perfect,” my mom said.
My father circled the tree. “It’s leaning,” he said.
“NO!” my mom and I shouted.
“Dad, it’s really okay,” I said. “The tree is just a bit fuller on one side, so it might look a little bit uneven. But it is straight. Really.”
“It’s leaning,” he said. “If I just…”
“DON’T TOUCH IT!” my mom and I yelled.
Out voted, but unconvinced, he reluctantly gave up. For the moment anyway.
He chuckled, “You know, you might get a call at three in the morning…”
“I won’t answer,” I replied.
As I left their house, carrying a jar of my mom’s soup, she said, “Don’t forget it’s your father’s 75th birthday this Friday.” She eyed him. “If he makes it till then.”
He made it. Happy Birthday, Dad. And Merry Christmas to my most wonderful parents, who’ve been knocking over and setting right Christmas trees together for more than 50 years.
***
Goodbye Ruby Tuesday?
February 2002. This column does ramble, from then current controversies to personal memories with a lot of Itha-centric references. Widewaters was a retail development project that had huge opposition, based on environmental impact and a general anti- development (especially big box store) sentiment. In the end, the Ruby Tuesday in question was never built. But other chain restaurants eventually settled near Elmira Road, as well as Home Depot and Lowes and the much dreaded Wal-Mart.
Word around town is that the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain wants to build an eatery on the Elmira Road at the site of the old R. Wood Motors. Let’s see: big national chain, Elmira Road, development? Yee haw! Make room on the Volvo’s bumper for a new sticker, Ma, we got us a protest movement!
Since I was living in Florida during the initial Widewaters controversy, I’m really excited about the chance to get in on the ground floor of a good ol’ Ithacause. So I went down to scope out the site and see if it meets the requirements.
First, you’ve got to have a viewshed. And this site has a dandy one. Well, it’s not really a shed; it’s actually an old two-bay garage with a rusted metal roof. But it does have graffiti spray painted on it, which no doubt also makes it a prime candidate for cultural/artistic preservation.
The lot itself is torn up asphalt and concrete. What looks like weeds poke through here and there, but they’re undoubtedly a rare species of endangered plant that we must protect. I’m sure we can find someone from Cornell to concur. Hey, what good is it having so many PhD’s in town if you can’t use ‘em?
If the environmental angle isn’t strong enough, a really good case could be made for preserving the historic aspects of the site. After all, prior to R. Wood Motors, it was home to Ripley’s Volkswagen. Long before Subarus and Volvos vied for Ithacans’ affection, we were a Bug loving town. Beetles offered cheap, dependable transportation, and excellent traction in winter. Over the years thousands of Cornell students have driven battered Beetles up and down Buffalo and State Street. (Most Ithaca College students, alas, had to make do with Daddy’s old Porsche.)
I have many fond childhood memories of the old Ripley Volkswagen showroom. My father often made sales calls there, and I’d tag along whenever he’d let me. I loved to climb in and out of the new Beetles and Karmann Ghias and Microbuses, all with that unique Volkswagen smell that never fades away.
My father bought his first of two VW Microbuses in 1965. What us kids really wanted was the Camper model, with a tiny sink and stove and lot’s of nifty little storage compartments.
But for my parents, camping was a bizarre, alien activity. Sleep in a tent? Cook over an open fire? Do your duty in the woods? Bugs, bees and bears? People with perfectly good homes with comfortable beds and indoor plumbing and electricity actually chose to do this? Incomprehensible. My parents were about as likely to ever take us camping as fly us all to England for tea with the Queen. The closest we ever came to sleeping in the great outdoors was when we’d all get on our pajamas and go to the Dryden Drive-In for the evening.
So the Camper Bus was definitely out of the question, but no big deal. To us kids, the basic VW Microbus was a cool enough. For long trips Dad would take out the bench seat in the middle, opening up a huge play/sleep area. Our parents could ride in relative peace and quiet up front, while us five kids plus a few friends wrestled and fought and jumped around and otherwise had a grand old time in the back. Child seats? Seat belts? What’s that? The most fought over place to ride wasn’t actually a seat at all, but the cargo shelf in the back, above the engine compartment. Two short-leggers could stretch out there in complete comfort.
The bus was noisy, underpowered, cold in winter, hot in summer, and about as unsafe a vehicle as was ever produced, but boy was it fun. We were the envy of all our wood-paneled-station-wagon-riding friends. Well, except the Thoren’s; their wagon had a rear facing third row seat. That was almost as cool.
My first car was a ’59 VW Bug, purchased for $25.00 when I was 14 years old. I was too young to get a driver’s license, but I amused myself and my siblings (and annoyed the neighbors) by zooming up and down our driveway. Fifty feet forward, slam on the brakes, fifty feet back. Repeat ad nauseam, emphasis on the nauseam. Well hey, it was 1969, and we didn’t have personal computers, video games or MTV.
Over the years I owned a few more Volkswagens, including a Microbus that I decorated by gluing fluorescent orange fake fur to the dashboard. Don’t ask.
I’m sure I’m not the only Ithacan with many fond memories of various Volkswagens. So given the history of the Elmira Road site, instead of a chain restaurant, maybe we should create a Volkswagen museum. After all, where better than Ithaca to honor a “people’s car”?
We could rebuild the old Ripley’s showroom and display vintage Volkswagens. We could also exhibit colorfully painted VW “hippie buses” with period bumper stickers. (Actually, a few are still running around town.) A museum shop could sell tie-dyed shirts, macramé plant hangers, peace symbol pins, candles and incense. We certainly never have enough of those in Ithaca. Perhaps we could commission a sculpture made from rusted-out VW heater boxes honoring local Volkswagen mechanic extraordinaire Karl Jaentsch. We could have an annual “Punch Buggy” tournament, with prizes for most sightings, hardest hits, etc. Or have contests for stuffing the most fraternity brothers in a Beetle.
Maybe the museum would be just the start. Perhaps we could expand it into a whole 60’s era theme park and housing complex – Freak-O-Village.
And now that I think of it, maybe, just maybe, if Ruby Tuesday asks real politely, and files all the proper environmental statements in a timely manner, we’ll let them build a small 1960’s-themed restaurant next to our museum. After all, they did name their chain after a 1967 song by the Rolling Stones, so it kind of fits in.
Of course, they’ll have to agree serve only organic, locally grown food. And they’ll have to pay all their employees a “living wage.” And they’ll have to charge 1960’s prices…
***
Angels, Saints and Santa Claus
December 2003
I didn’t realize what problems Santa Claus could cause. One woman frets that if they visit Santa at the mall her daughter will think it’s okay to sit on a strange man’s lap. Another mother says she doesn’t like the idea of telling her daughter that a stranger sneaks into their house at night while they sleep. A third refuses to answer any of her kids’ questions about jolly St. Nick because she just doesn’t know what she should tell them. She refers all questions to her husband. He loves talking about Santa Claus.
I’m with the husband. Some of my fondest memories are of lying snug in bed Christmas Eve, so excited I could hardly sleep, anticipating Santa’s arrival. A big old house like ours creaked and groaned a lot, but was that last sound a sleigh landing on the roof? Are those reindeer pawing about? And later – yes, I definitely hear some rustling sounds from downstairs. Is it him? Dare I sneak down and see? Heavens no, I might scare him away.
I was a bit concerned with all those stories about Santa sliding down the chimney, because the only chimney in our house led straight to the furnace. But somehow he managed to get in each year. Hey, he’s a magical kind of guy.
Growing up Catholic surely contributed to my easy belief in Santa Claus. I felt surrounded by all sorts of mysterious invisible beings – guardian angels, devils, saints. And of course, the big guy with the beard, God Himself. It wasn’t a stretch to believe in another magical bearded man. After all, the proof was in the presents.
Most Christmas mornings followed the same script. Since I was the oldest child, I’d wake first. I’d shake my four siblings awake, and we’d try to coax our parents out of bed. They’d groan it’s only five a.m., and send us back to bed. So we’d try again at six. Same result. But by seven, they’d give in. My parents were always so sleepy Christmas morning. You’d think they’d been up half the night or something.
Next mom and dad would go downstairs ahead of us. We’d wait impatiently at the top of the stairs until we saw the lights from the Christmas tree flick on. That was our cue to trample each other in a mad rush to the living room.
We always had a Christmas tree that touched the ceiling, and our house had high ceilings. A yard stick on top of my father’s head was just the right height. He’d get funny looks at the tree lots, but it was a foolproof method.
On Christmas morning this huge evergreen, sparkling with lots of multi-colored lights, ornaments and tinsel, was a fitting backdrop for a most magical scene. Five kids each getting four or five presents is a lot of gifts to spread around. For a moment our mouths would hang open, awed by the sight. Santa had done it again!
After the initial sensory overload, we each found our respective pile of presents. With so many gifts Santa never had time to wrap, he just artfully arranged presents in little piles, with maybe a big toy or two for the whole family in the middle. Only five years separated me from my youngest brother, so there were lots of toys we all could share. Well, I wasn’t about to let the young kids mess with my chemistry set, wouldn’t be safe, and who wants to play with Katie’s dolls, (or who would admit it), but everybody loves Lego.
As I got older and “wiser,” I continued to enjoy the magic of Santa Claus by sharing the excitement my younger siblings felt. I egged them on, asking “Is that blinking red light in the sky Rudolf?” or “Did you see Santa ate all the cookies we left out for him?” Or, “Look outside the window, do you think that’s reindeer poop?”
I really miss those wonder-filled years. I loved sharing my world with angels, saints and Santa Claus. Eventually I went through that cynical teenage period where you question everything, demand scientific proof, and dismissed all incorporeal beings. But lately I’m not so sure I’m so darn smart, and I find I want more magic, not less, in my world.
Sure, we should be wary of strange men’s laps and strangers sneaking into our house. Strangers, yes. But in my world, Santa Claus is not a stranger.
***
Rommy
March 2003. Occasionally I tried to capture more than just the funny side of life. I was surprised and touched when one reader, a rather macho type of guy, told me this column made him cry.
With so many tragic war stories bombarding us, the death of a guinea pig may seem like a frivolous subject to write about. But in a time of sorrow so overwhelming it numbs, it took something seemingly insignificant to finally pry real tears from my eyes.
Sunday morning, March 23, my son Dan summoned me to his room. Our beloved little guinea pig, Rommy, lay on her side, not moving, not breathing, growing cold. An hour or so earlier, when I tried to tempt our teenager out of bed with the promise of Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls, Rommy had been awake and seemingly okay. I made a point of checking on her because she’d been very sick.
About three years ago Dan and my wife Diane decided we needed a pet. Diane’s allergic to dogs and cats, so those obvious choices were out. Dan lobbied for a ferret, but a frenzied little weasel didn’t seem like a good addition to our small apartment. Eventually they decided a guinea pig would be perfect. They were small, easy to care for, and cheap.
I’m not a pet person. Oh, I’ve grown fond of a few cats and dogs, but they were always someone else’s responsibility. I had zero desire to be caretaker for a member of another species. Being a father to Dan completely fulfilled any biological need to nurture.
So I said if they wanted a pet, fine, as long as I had absolutely nothing, nada, zilch to do with taking care of it. Don’t ask me to feed it, pet it, or especially, clean up after it.
They went to the pet store, and returned with one 15 dollar guinea pig. And 85 dollars worth of supplies. So much for cheap.
I reluctantly admitted she was a cute little critter; jet black with a white stripe down her nose. She was a short-haired guinea pig, sleek and neat. Not like the long-haired ones with their ruffled “every-day’s-a-bad-hair-day” fur.
Dan wanted to name her Rammstein, in honor of his favorite German heavy metal band. But that seemed like an awfully big, brutal name for such a timid little creature, so Rammstein gave way to Rom Pig and eventually, Rommy.
Diane enjoyed holding and petting Rommy. She made contented little cooing sounds,(Rommy, not Diane), so I guess she enjoyed it, too. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t bite your finger if you weren’t careful.(Rommy, not Diane.) Apparently Rommy never heard the saying “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
Dan had high hopes of teaching the pig tricks. He set up elaborate cardboard mazes, but Rommy always took the direct approach and just knocked them down. He tried to teach her to climb a ramp to get a treat, but she seemed quite perplexed by the whole idea. He bought her a plastic ball and put her inside to see if she would roll it around the apartment, but the slightest rocking motion made her freeze stiff and look seasick.
Basically, guinea pigs are good at three things: squeaking, eating, and pooping. Rommy did have one other skill. When she was excited,(usually because food was coming), her back end would suddenly spring off the ground and twist in the air like she’d just sat on a firecracker. We called it her “butt dance.”
While we didn’t have much luck training Rommy, she faired much better training us. One day Diane gave her a little crunchy treat just before leaving for work. The next day, when Diane used her hairspray, Rommy began squeaking loudly in anticipation. Well, how could Diane resist such cute behavior? It became a morning ritual.
And, despite my vow that I would have absolutely nothing to do with taking care of a pet, Rommy trained me, too. Rommy was partial to parsley, so Diane would give her some every evening. One night, as Diane delivered the parsley, she tried to talk me into feeding it to the pig. “Nope, no thanks,” I said. “Ah, come on,” Diane said, “just hold a stalk near her, and let her grab it. It’s fun.” I kept resisting, and she kept insisting. Finally I gave in and fed the piggy her parsley. And, yeah, it was cute the way she got so excited and grabbed and nibbled, but I was definitely not going to repeat the delivery service. I don’t take care of pets, remember?
The next night, as I walked down the hall, I heard a frenzied squeaking. “What the heck is that about?” I asked. “Oh,” Diane said, “Rommy wants you to bring her parsley.” “Not my job,” I replied. “Oh please, I’m busy right now, and Dan’s at karate. Can’t you just give her some tonight?” I reluctantly agreed, but only for this one, absolutely final, last time.
But you know how that story goes. Somehow it became my job to bring piggy her parsley every single night. Somehow her little pea-sized brain recognized my footsteps, so all I needed to do was start walking down the hall around nine o’clock at night and she’d let out an exuberant, expectant squeak. And like the well-trained human I’d become, I’d turn back to the kitchen and fetch her evening snack.
Soon I found myself checking to see if she might need water or hay. Diane and Dan were supposed to take care of that, but if they were off to work or school, I couldn’t very well let little piggy go thirsty or hungry, now could I?