Slides 12, 56 and 57

The Slide: A family on a highway

The Date:  Around 1970

The Photographer:  Unknown

 The picture was taken from our car’s passenger side window.  The subject of the photo is a young American family—father, mother and toddler—off for a motorcycle ride on a summer day.   The father wears a white t-shirt and long cotton trousers—the mother, shorts and a sleeveless blouse.  The toddler, a little boy, wears a one-piece sun suit and is sitting in a child’s travel seat behind his mom.  The seat is strapped onto the bike’s luggage rack above the back fender. A small sneakered foot dangles close to the rear tire.  The father is driving fast and the woman’s hair flies in the wind.  None of them are wearing helmets.  I’m guessing they didn’t bother with the sunscreen either. They’re off for the afternoon and having fun.

Today the parents would be prosecuted for child endangerment. It’s hard to look at the photo without shuttering. It’s hard to imagine that in 1970 we thought this photo was cute but that’s because… well… things were different then. 

Safety was not a cultural priority.   I suppose the farm kids learned about the importance of being careful.  They were probably taught to keep their heads out of the hay bailer—maybe told to stop pullin’ on the bull’s nose ring—but we didn’t get many of those warnings in town.  I do remember it was important to wait an hour after lunch before swimming.  Observing this summertime discipline was important in preventing death.  Sure, we missed the best pool hour of the day but we all survived.

I also remember a catchy safety jingle that filled our airwaves for nearly a decade. 

 Buckle up for safety

Buckle up

Buckle up for safety

Always buckle up.

 It was a nice little ditty—a wonderful safety campaign—which would have been far more effective had they, in those days, sold cars with seat belts.   In the late sixties my father bought a new Ford Tempest and that car had belts in the front but one of the buckles fell off and got stuck beneath the seat.  We tried for a few days to get it out and then gave up.  It wasn’t much good with only one side to the buckle so we tucked the belts under the seat too.  It wasn’t a great loss.  It’s not like we would have ever worn them.   They seemed unnecessary.  After all, these were the days when, if I fought in the car with my sister, my father sent me to the back window for a time out.  I liked it up there lying in the solar heat. It was especially nice in the late autumn.  Sometimes on short rides around town my father let me sit on his lap and steer—and more than a few times, just for fun, he’d let my sister and me ride in the trunk. These were the same years my wife’s family vacationed with all five kids laid out playing games on the back deck of the station wagon.  They probably didn’t even lock the doors.  Safety wasn’t a big deal back then.  

It was a different world in which we could not have imagined the culture of today.  For example, restaurants were places you ate next to tables full of chain smokers. The smoke was so thick you couldn’t see the menu.  Nor could you taste the food.  Oddly, I don’t ever recall anyone complaining. It was part of the culinary experience.  And of course it was worse on airplanes. Back then, as now, I flew nearly every week. On many flights I was the only one who didn’t smoke.  I swear, in the bigger planes, from the front you could not see the back rows.  You found your seat by following the tract lighting on the floor.  This is nearly unimaginable now in a day when the entire country of Ireland has gone smokeless. 

It’s as if safety consciousness had not yet evolved.  Coffee cups did not display warnings that the coffee might be hot.  Everyone figured it probably was.  The manufacturer of Super Glue did not warn us to keep the drops out of our eyes.  Most of us never felt the urge.  Frankly other warnings from Super Glue might have been more helpful. I could have used one that said, “Not for use in practical jokes involving toilet seats.”  Though even in this case my classmate survived and is nearly scar free which proves again that time heals all wounds.

Still, when I look at the picture of the motorcycle family I cringe.  The parents are smiling as if they can’t imagine that anything could go wrong.  I ask myself, "What’s the matter with these people?  Are they that stupid?" Of course the answer is… Yes!  But so are we all.  Honest parents with even a few short years of experience know how foolish they can be.  And most of us looking back recognize how foolish, at times, our own parents were.  That being said, is it not a great a marvelous wonder that any of us are still alive? 

I first understood this truth about my own father when I was fourteen.  Until then, I’d always seen him as the intelligent, loving dad that he was.  But that changed during Christmas vacation. My cousins from California were coming with their parents for the holiday.  This family was, as we used to say, pretty well off.  They lived in the hills above Oakland in a big home with lush beautiful landscaping.  Our whole house would have fit in their living room.   I’d spent the entire previous summer with them and now nervously anticipated their visit.  They planned to stay for nearly a week and I was concerned that we wouldn’t have enough to do.   This is the family that took me to the beach in Santa Cruz where we killed entire days at the amusement park on the boardwalk.  We visited Yosemite, Monterey, Carmel, and Disneyland.   We drove over to San Francisco one night where we ate in China Town and then saw Yul Brynner  in The King and I.  Several times we watched the Giants play through the fog at Candlestick Park.  These people had given me the biggest adventures of my life. Now they were coming to my home in rural Pennsylvania and I was concerned that they’d be bored. 

At first it seemed my worries were unfounded.  I’d not considered that they’d spent almost no time in snow—and snow was something we had lots of to enjoy.  For a couple days we played snow football in the front yard, did some sledding on the hill behind our house and had a few good snowball fights.  Then we began looking for something more exciting. Fortunately, I had an idea.

A couple summers earlier one of my buddies, who lived by the river, found a big rectangular piece of floating Styrofoam caught in the branches of fallen tree.  We hauled it to his house and sawed angles in the front creating a boat shape. Then we hollowed it out and hauled it back down to the river where we spent many summer days just floating around.   At the end of August we talked our parents into allowing us to take an entire day just to see how far we could float down river.  As it turned out the river was very low that summer. We had to get out and let the boat float by itself most of the way but that evening the odometer in the car said we traveled about five miles.  Of course, we’d floated much further because the river always takes the long way around.

Now a year and a half later I worked in the backyard with my cousins shoveling two feet of snow off the frozen Styrofoam.  Peter, who was a year younger than me and a little over weight looked concerned, “So you’re telling me this will float. Right?” he said.

“Sure it’ll float,” I said.  “That’s not the problem. The problem is getting our folks to let us do this.”

My older cousin Tom looked inside the boat. “ You know,” he said, “I don’t think I can fit in there.” At nearly 6’5’’ Tom had reason to wonder.

“You’ll fit,” I said.  “You can sit on the back ledge if you have to.  Pete can sit in the middle and I’ll paddle on my knees up front. What do say?  Shall we ask them?” They agreed and we headed inside.

I knew it wasn’t a good idea.  That’s the reason I’d brought it up—it sounded adventuresome.  It sounded perilous which put me in a good light with my cousins but I’d only suggested it knowing we wouldn’t be allowed. The river is dangerous in the winter.  It is not only deeper and flowing more swiftly but ice encroaches from both banks—the water is swirling in places and, needless to say, it’s cold. I knew we weren’t going anywhere.

Our folks were all in the kitchen putting Christmas leftovers on the table. “Hey Dad,” I said as nonchalantly as possible, “we just shoveled off my Styrofoam boat and I was thinking we could take it up the river and then we could float back toward town and you could pick us up at the Mill Street bridge. Would that be okay?”

“Sure,” he said.  “Let’s have some lunch first.”

Pete and Tom let out a, "Woo hoo!"

“Okay you guys,” my mother said, “who would like the last spoon of the corn pudding?”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.  But he said it.  He said, “Sure. Let’s have some lunch first.”  So we did.  Then we went out and hauled the hunk onto the top of our car and twined it down.  We drove a couple miles up Route 6 to a place where the river almost joins the highway and pulled over.  It was two in the afternoon and getting very cold. We cut the boat off the car, slid it down the bank and crawled in.  Tom was right.  He didn’t fit.  But the boat floated and we started down stream. 

“We’ll see you at the bridge in an hour,” my dad shouted.  Then he snapped a couple pictures, hopped in the car and drove off. We sang the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. 

That was the highlight of our trip.

The photographic evidence is clear.  We could have been killed.  We didn’t even have life preservers.  We couldn’t move in the tiny space—didn’t dare move for fear of tipping and our bodies were freezing.  The river is particularly circuitous in that stretch meaning it didn’t take us an hour.  It took us three hours and by the end it was starting to get dark. Before we could see them, from far off, we heard our fathers. They were shouting our names.  There was a sound of desperation in their voices.  When we shouted back they responded joyously as if they knew they had done something foolish. A few minutes later we floated around a bend and saw them where they'd been waiting for a long time.  My father snapped a picture. 

We crawled onto the bank beneath the bridge, miserable, unable to feel our hands and feet. We scrabbled awkwardly up the steep grade to the warmth of the car.  I was not happy with my father but didn’t want my cousins to think any of the experience was other than normal. My father opened the car door and said, “Do you want me to try to pull the boat up the bank?”  I didn’t hesitate.

“Leave it,” I said. 

Later that spring the high waters washed it away.

My father’s actions were the winter equivalent of putting the toddler on the motorcycle.  Every parent is guilty of the same.  Some parents are more cautious than others but the very nature of parenting—twenty-four hours a day, day after day, year after year—insures that mom and dad will make some terrible mistakes. The old adage, “Accidents will happen”  is closer to a law of nature than we would like to think. Serious accidents will be carefully avoided for years and then someone will say, “Hey Honey, do you suppose that car seat would fit on the back of my Honda?”  Or, “Hey Dad, we just shoveled off the Styrofoam boat and I was thinking….” At those times one can only pray to God as my father did standing on that cold bridge. At those times one can only pray that everyone will be okay. Of course some people don’t believe in God so even that option is off the table.   I’m guessing most of them are not yet parents.  

 

Slides 61, 34, 87 and 75

The Slides: Bernt Goran and me

The Date: Summer 1975

The Photographer: My wife Judy

Recently I received an encouraging e-mail commenting on a piece I’d written. The e-mail said, “This… is… genius!!” Reviews like this are not common but it’s not the first time my name has been connected to the word “genius”. It is, however, the first time I received such a comment and read it more than once. It is the first time that I called to my wife shouting, “Hey Honey, come here for a sec. I want to read you something.” The reason I was encouraged, and yes a little inflated, is because I respect the person who sent the message. This is not always the case.

Recently an audience member approached following a performance. “That was pure genius!” he said. I would have been more impressed had his next sentence not been, “Dude you rocked!” The boy was thirteen. He had mustard on his glasses and his belt buckled just beneath his butt. It was clear to me that he wouldn’t know “pure genius” if it crawled out of his cotton boxers.

Sometimes the word “genius” is misused as a superlative to communicate appreciation. Many words are misused this way. Take the word “brilliant” for example. I had the opportunity to work for the better part of a year in a Dublin theater. I was so impressed the first week to have patrons say, “You were brilliant! Just brilliant!” This was very encouraging. I’d been called many nice things but never had I heard the word “brilliant”. It took a couple weeks for me to understand that “brilliant” is used commonly in Ireland. It can mean anything from “pretty good” to “better than okay”. I once asked a waitress, “Are the baked beans in your traditional Irish breakfast of the canned variety or are they freshly prepared?”

She remarked, “Oh… em… well they do come from a can but our chef prepares them quite brilliantly.” Which is to say, my performances in Ireland were about on par with canned pork and beans.

Last week though, I received the e-mail and it said, “This… is… genius!!” I respect the woman who wrote it. I appreciate the comment. I too think it was a good piece, maybe even “brilliant”. But “genius”? Probably not, and I’m okay with that. I think “genius” is highly over rated.

As a child, I knew that some of my classmates were a little smarter than I. Actually I knew that many of them… okay most of them were. I even suspected that a few might be geniuses. They were the kids who never had to study and yet they got straight A’s. I remember one girl in particular. Her name was Andrea. She always finished her tests with half our class time to spare. I would have just completed signing my paper and figuring out the date… maybe I’d scanned down to see if there were any easy questions. She’d be done. Then she’d file her nails while casually glancing over at my paper and smiling.

Was she a genius? I don’t know. Maybe. There was no way to know for sure because “genius” had to do with IQ scores and those were unavailable to us. Supposedly we’d all been tested at some time and somewhere in a dark office, probably underground, someone guarded a file full of IQs. But we were never to see them… ever! That was fine with me because I didn’t remember taking the test which meant I’d probably only signed my name and scanned for the easy ones before the bell rang. Best we leave the IQ file closed.

Honestly, I don’t think there were many geniuses among us. If there were we probably wouldn’t have known it. There was one boy in my sister’s class who we all thought of as the dummy. That’s saying something because even though I was three years his junior, I thought he was stupid. He’s now a world-renowned brain surgeon. I’m not saying I’d trust him with my grey matter but supposedly if anyone could find it, it would be him. I also wonder about this guy because he always seemed unhappy. This might be attributable to the fact that we all thought him stupid, and more than a few told him so, but maybe he was unhappy because he was a genius. The two do seem to go hand in hand. I’ve met only one person who I believe to be a genuine, honest to goodness genius.

In 1975, Judy and I had the opportunity to join my grandmother and my parents who were vacationing in Sweden. Together we traveled to my paternal grandfather’s hometown. It was there that I met my distant cousin Bernt Goran.

He was a young man my own age, bearing a remarkable resemblance to my father’s family- in some ways a smaller version of myself. Like most Swedes of his generation, his English was quite good but he was soft-spoken, serious in his demeanor and didn’t seem to have a lot to say. I found him intriguing. When he sat, he looked straight ahead. Even when crossing one leg over the other, as if relaxing, he looked on edge… he looked ready to bolt. His face would change appropriately with the room’s conversation, smiling when he ought, shaking his head in agreement or raising an eyebrow in concern but he seemed not fully engaged. Some underlying preoccupation gnawed for his attention. Judy and I liked him very much. We found him to be kind hearted and oddly apologetic. We’d traveled enough to know that the latter quality can be the result of using a second language, or it can be the result of shyness but we sensed there was something more.

“Bob, Judy,” he said to us one afternoon, “tonight I wish to prepare a meal. Will you enjoy to come to my house then?”

“Yes of course,” Judy said, “We would enjoy that very much.”

That evening he picked us up at exactly the time we’d arranged and drove us far into the countryside where we saw nestled in the woods a small cottage. It was stained a deep iron red with white painted trim and fully blossomed window boxes. The roof was hand hewn wooden shakes and the evening sun, casting long shadows, gave it a soft mossy texture. Even from outside I could see that the windows were old wavy bubble glassed panes.

Inside, the floors of wide hardwood planking were covered with woven rugs the color of wild flowers, the same flowers that decorated the hand stenciled walls. The dining ware was set upon a lovely pine table its design and patina perfectly tuned to the rest of the room- down the center of the table a fine linen runner of blackberry purple, raspberry red, celery green. Around us, every detail was exquisite. I’d only a year earlier moved out of my own bachelor dwelling. I remembered it being not as nice.

Judy walked from vase to lamp to place setting admiring each article, softly touching the fabrics, running her fingers over each surface and then standing for a long speechless moment before the stenciled walls. Finally she spoke softly. “Bernt,” she said. “Everything is so beautiful.”

“Yes, thanks very much,” he said. “It was many long hours.”

“What was?” I asked.

“To make this house,” he said.

“You made this?” I said. “You did it by yourself?”

“No,” he said. “Sometimes I have a little help with heavy things.” Choosing his English words carefully, he spoke quietly, mostly looking downward. “I must first dig a hole for underneath,” he said, “and there are many large stones. So I use them for the foundation. Then I must cut some trees and make boards. And I have found glass for the windows in an old house, which has being taken down. And I must make the shingles for the roof. It has been much work.”

To this point in my life I had learned to do almost nothing of a practical nature. I could not have measured a board much less cut it out of a tree. I was an aspiring musician. I’d written a couple dozen forgettable songs. That was the sum of it.

Judy returned to the table where she admired the linen runner. “This is a wonderful old linen,” she said. “Where did you find it?”

“Oh,” he said, “I have not found it. I have made it.” At this I laughed out loud only to realize he was serious.

“You made it?”

“Yes.”

“How?” I said. He looked directly at me and for a brief moment his expression changed. It was just a flash but I wondered if he thought I might be a bit slow.

“Well,” he continued, “first I must take a grown sheep…”

“Wait,” I said. “You grew a sheep?”

“No,” he said, “The sheep grew by itself but I shaved off the wool and spun it into threads on a… what do you call it?”

“A spinning wheel,” we chimed.

“Yes, yes and then I must make dye with flowers that I have grown. And the green color was very difficult because I must go into the forest for one kind of …” He searched for the word and made like he was digging.

“A root,” we said.

“Yes, yes.” He passed his hand over the linen and pointing at a thin line of mossy green thread, he said, “It is a rare root but I think it makes a very nice color.”

He had prepared a traditional meal of fish with dill sauce, boiled potatoes and summer beets. While we ate we asked about the leather shoulder bag and hat. We asked about the candlesticks, the flower arrangements and the woolen wall hanging. He made them all. Words like “master craftsman” and “renaissance man” came to mind. Two times I thought the word “moron” but both were in reference to myself. I did not wonder if he was a genius. Not yet.

Following the meal we drank dark coffee and he showed us a dulcimer… that he had made. Then I saw the accordion case in the corner. For anyone who plays the instrument the case is easily recognized. It can be for nothing else.

“Do you play the accordion?” I asked.

“Yes, this is a new one,” then he added with a smile, “but I have not made it.”

“I play the accordion,” I said. “I took lessons when I was a young boy.”

“Well then,” he said, opening the case, “you must play a song for me.” He put the instrument in my arms. I knew then that I could not play him a song. Even if I could remember one from my boyhood I could not play it on his instrument.

“Bernt,” I said, “I’m sorry but I can’t play this kind of accordion. I learned on what we call a piano accordion. On my instrument I have keys for the right hand. But you have no keys. There are only buttons. I have no idea how to play even the simplest song.”

“Well give it a little try,” he said and unwisely I did. With the left hand I could produce a polka oom pah pah, but that was it. The right hand was as foreign to me as spinning thread, weaving linen, turning pots, digging foundations, tanning leather, planing wood, shingling roofs, growing flowers, dying fabric, stenciling walls… well you get the idea. “I’m sure this one is very much the same as yours,” he said.

“No,” I said, “not really. I mean both have bellows and they get squeezed but that’s about it. I think you’ll have to play something for me.” I secured the bellows with the snap and handed him the instrument.

“Alright then,” he said and he left the room. When he returned he had the accordion on and was adjusting a large harmonica to a neck holder.

“Alright then,” he said. “This song I have written.” He closed his eyes and began.

I don’t remember how long he played. I do remember though that he did not play a song. He played a masterpiece… lyrical and intricate. Melodies from both hands and another from the harmonica wove together. Once I thought I heard Copland and then again something like Bernstein. Always it was wholly Scandinavian, intrinsically Swedish, moody with long mossy shadows and then flashes of midnight sun that stole my breath. How does one describe music with words? Let me fail even more and say it felt like Van Gogh.

When he finished he smiled.

We sat in silence.

“It is just something I have made,” he said softly. I shook my head. That’s all I could do. If I were brighter I might have told him that it too was exquisite. Like everything else in his home, its design and patina were perfectly tuned to… well to their maker. I was unable to find those words.

“Bernt,” I said, “I have never heard an accordion played that way. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe any of this. Bernt, do you know how remarkable you are? You are… you are... “ and then the word came. “I think you are a genius.” He lowered his gaze to the floor and shook his head side to side. “No,” I said. “I mean it. Everything you’ve done. And what you have just played… Bernt it is genius.”

Perhaps I expected a nonclaimer or at the least a “thank you”. Instead still shaking his head he said sadly, “It is not so good to be like this. My mind… it always goes. I sleep very little. Almost never. It won’t stop. My mind, it is always going round and round. I am always thinking, trying to… “ Still shaking his head he said, “It is just not the best.”

I don’t remember leaving that night but I will never forget being there. I was awed standing in the presence of a genius and yet so thankful to be me.

I think of my cousin Bernt very often. I always hope he is well.

Slide 3

The Slide: Arnold Ave. Elementary School

The Date: Summer 1967

The Photographer:  My sister Sally

 

           The Arnold Ave. School was built in the late 20's and it was built to last.  Constructed from yellow brick the two-story structure had large, lovely arching windows both front and back providing wonderful natural light for four classrooms on each floor.  At one end was a small cafeteria/gymnasium.  At the other, as I remember, a grand auditorium with impossibly squeaky wooden seats.  At any assembly of students we were not only required to behave.  We were forbidden to move.  The flagpole stood in the front lawn which was the greenest in town and meticulously maintained as were the hallways of heavily polished Terrazzo reflecting walls of yellow gloss.  I don't recall the ceilings. They were probably too high to be seen.

          Behind the school were large fields for Kickball and a designated area packed with delightful, deadly playground equipment.  Here by the Merry Go Round, it was not uncommon to see a flying first grader flung centrifugally before cutting a teacher off at the knees.  I remember waiting in a long line so Mr. Hughes, a rotund third grade teacher, could buck me on the Teeter Totter.  At the top I had the choice to hold on to the bar grip resulting in a dangerously high handstand, or I could let go and just… fly!

Our swing set was constructed of heavy welded steel with chain links the size of a child's hand.  We took turns while classmates wound us round by the legs until we were hunched over, six feet off the ground.  If our fingers happened to be caught in the chain we were, at this point, nearly unconscious.  When the chains could be wound no more we were released to spin for long minutes at eye popping speeds.  I once watched a sixth grade girl jump off at the bottom, stagger three steps and dive head first into the Monkey Bars. It was great fun.  Even children who preferred to play alone were at risk.  The plastic coil spring horses were known to toss a shy child upside down and head first for no reason at all.

          I loved my Arnold Ave. School. Our town had few other public buildings so we grew up with very little sense of architecture.  For this reason, though I could not put it into words, I thought my school was beautiful.  I thought of it as "dignified". 

          All of our homes were of four types.  Old factory housing looked like it was designed by preschool draftsmen.  Four walls were topped with a two-sided pitched roof.  In the front there was a door and a window or two - maybe the same on the back- and that was it. Over time many of these homes had fallen but there were still a few on North Main in a section my grandfather called Tannery Row.

          The newly built homes, that replaced the fallen, were mostly ramblers or ranch homes as they were called. My neighborhood, of perhaps a dozen homes, sported Frank Lloyd Wright inspired flat roofed structures.  The neighborhood was designed by a Lloyd Wright protégé who also designed our new high school.  The architect's own home and office hung to the side of a hill, high above us all, barely visible so naturally was it wedded to it's environment.

          I remember being very taken by the modern flat roofed homes and was disappointed that ours was the only dwelling on the street that had an old style pitched roof.  But my father said,  "No, no.  Wait and see.  We're the lucky ones." Within fifteen years all our neighbors, frustrated with the leaking, gave up and built pitched roofs on top of the flat ones.  In most cases the results looked awkward and self-conscious, like the local guy who decides to wear a toupee.  Everyone knew they didn't quite fit.  Frank Lloyd Wright must have rolled over in his cantilevered tomb.             

      The fourth type of home in our community was the grand mansion of which there were only a few.  They were built by the lumber, tannery and natural gas barons and had names like The B.C. Taber, The John A. Weinman and the grandest of all The A.M. Benton which, when I was a boy, was called Isherwood's. Isherwood's graced an entire, cast iron-fenced in block along Main Street. Maples and Chestnuts filtered sun dappled shade onto the stately grounds accented with Mountain Laurel, cement ponds and playful fountains.   The squarish house had wide elegant porches wrapping three sides and a covered carport on the fourth. Most impressive to me the building was topped with a glassed in cupola. Our old mansions were the only buildings that surpassed the Arnold Ave School in architectural beauty.

      Arnold Ave, as it was called, was built as the high school and remained so until 1955.  Both my mother and father attended there graduating in '45 and '46 respectively.  Dad was a star football player, number 75, whose team boasted a perfect record his sophomore year.  No team would again go undefeated until my sophomore year a full generation later.  One Saturday evening, following an uninspiring defeat of a winless opponent, I sat at the dinner table with my family. "How 'bout that Dad?" I said, "I scored a touchdown and I'm only a sophomore."

          "That's really great," he said with obvious pride.

           My mother looked at my father and smiled. I thought she smiled because she was pleased for me but she kept smiling and staring at my father. He avoided her gaze.

          Finally she said to him in mock exasperation, "Bob, are you going to tell you son or should I?"

          "What?" he said. "I told him that's really great."

          "Bobby," she said to me, "when you're dad was a sophomore…" I cut her off.

          "I know Mom, " I said.  "I know they went undefeated and we're going to do it too."

          "Well, I hope so," she said. "But what your father didn't tell is that when he was a sophomore he scored every touchdown!" 

         I refused to believe it, not to spite my father but because I simply didn't think it was possible.  Only recently while moving my parents out of their home did I find the newspaper clippings and learn that it was true.  His old yearbooks failed to give him credit but the yellowed newsprint held the proof.

           By the time I entered first grade my father was teaching at the high school and later became the principal. Because of his position, I felt I was held to a slightly higher standard than other children.  I noticed, for example, that other kids were absent more often than I.  I once asked my buddy why he stayed home and he said, "I thought I had a stomach ache."

          I was incredulous.  "What do you mean you thought you had one?" I said.  "You either had one or you didn't. Right?"

          "Right," he said, "I sure thought I did."

          This would not fly in my family. I understood that to miss school I either had to have a fever or I had to be "losin' it" from both ends.  Anything less, any other malady was considered tolerable. I could never have said, "Mom, I think I'm throwing up." I either was throwing up, in which case there was evidence on the hallway carpet, or I was going to school.

          Even when I was ill there was little motivation to miss school knowing I would suffer my mother's home remedies, the worst being a procedure call the enema.  This practice, dating back to the ancient Egyptians, was "popular" -if that word can possibly be uttered in reference to such an act- until the late 1950s.  One can hardly imagine how the idea first occurred but I'll give it a try.

Cyrus: You know I've been suffering severe intestinal             

  distress, diarrhea and debilitating nausea.

Curt:   Well, I'm sure sorry to hear that.

Cyrus:  Thanks.  Say, I'd like to run a little idea by you.

Curt:  Sure go ahead.

Cyrus:  Okay well… I've been thinking a lot lately about             

  sticking a hose into the bottom of the city cistern.  And         

  then maybe I'd stick the other end into my butt. What do

  you think about that?

Curt:  Well what can I say? I imagine that will become very "popular".    

          It's interesting to note a similar theme in every alien abduction ever reported. I believe there is no greater evidence against such occurrences than this very fact. Consider that nearly all abductees were raised in the 40s and 50s, well within the enema era. If you are in that age range you could hardly imagine a more disgusting, less dignified thing than being probed by a spider fingered alien.  Yet I'm guessing if these beings, from light years away, were intelligent enough to get here then they're probably sharp enough to keep their digits out of our butts.  My mother, by the way, told me that she has no recollection of administering her soapy remedy.  To which I said, "Well Mom that's either a mercy of your growing old or I've been abducted by aliens."

          I attended Arnold Ave. from first grade through sixth.  I enjoyed learning.  I did well. Then, when I was preparing to change schools for the seventh grade, my family moved to State College so my father could pursue his doctoral studies.  My new jr. high had more people than my entire former town.  Since this new school did not know me, the administration gave me tests to determine where I should be placed. Apparently I performed poorly and was placed in "lower" level classes. I, however, did not understand this.  I seemed to experience a great year academically.  Never had my classes been easier.  Never had I so excelled.

          My father finished his studies and we returned to our little town.  Now, home again, the administration looked at my excellent grades and placed me back with my high level friends.  This was, of course, exactly what I wanted.  But then the struggle began. Actually I never caught up.  I lived from one six-week grading period to the next, happy for the first three weeks and a nervous wreck for the last knowing I was in trouble. My parents said I just wasn't applying myself and no doubt that was true but it seemed foolish to study when I knew I couldn't succeed.  I remember some of my senior friends deciding to "slide" through the last months until graduation.  I would have enjoyed that had I not already slid for years. I did not find my footing academically until well into college when finally, again, I began to enjoy learning.

          As a young adult I visited Arnold Ave. several times. Once after returning from Africa I spoke to the children about my experiences.  They filed into the old auditorium, the screeching seats sounding like a flock of gulls. But when I spoke the children did not move.  A couple times, while back in town, I stopped by the school to visit with my fifth grade teacher Mrs. Saiers.  She was my favorite and remained in her classroom many years after I'd moved away. Always when I went there, I found the school more beautiful, more dignified.

          With the passing of new laws, Arnold Ave. could no longer meet code.  Renovation was considered too expensive and the school was abandoned for a new, very nice modern building across the street from the high school.  For a while my school sat empty.  The lawns were not maintained as well and in winter the walks remained unshoveled but still it stood like a jewell - a beautiful monument to four generations of students who attended there.

         Unfortunately much of the town did not fare as well. Many of the older homes and particularly the stately mansions required heavy maintenance. For some owners it was impossible. Green Astroturf -always a good design choice- was added to the porch of one home.  Another home was covered with vinyl siding.  It looked good for a year or two, and then faded the same color as every other piece of vinyl in town.  Saddest of all, the porches began to fall off the old Isherwood.  For a while they were propped up with construction jacks but eventually those were removed and the porches fell away one side at a time. Most of the stately trees grew old and died.  The cement ponds were filled in.  A back corner of the property was sold for the construction of a duplex and the front for a Dollar Store.

        Like the dead coalmine canary, perhaps the demise of our old homes was warning of worse to come. I returned home several years ago and found Arnold Ave. School in ruins, not having fallen but demolished to enable the construction of six rather ordinary homes.  It broke my heart. When I asked my dad how he felt he said, "There oughta be a law."

          I know time passes.  I know things change. Still, remembering my old school, I'm sometimes overcome with nostalgia.  It is my weakness.  Often by mid-afternoon I experience a sweet melancholy recalling breakfast. But the loss of Arnold Ave. is terribly sad.  After all, though it is unlikely, the old mansions could be brought back. They could be restored.  Arnold Ave. School has been lost forever and with it some of our town's beauty and some of our dignity.