What Happened (Part 21)

 

The doorway to the Kitchen is simply a ten foot opening; a metal threshold marks where the wood floor ends and the speckled linoleum begins. The way this room is now would startle my youngest sibling, I think, who never knew it so. It is bright, airy, clean, and uncluttered.  The walls and roof are a cheery canary yellow, the curtains over the sink and around the window looking out to the driveway have a rustic farm motif featuring roosters and coffee-mills, and the myriad cabinets and drawers gleam with copper colonial-style handles. The kitchen table set is an old Formica-topped model with metal tubular legs and a chrome edge banding its rounded rectangle.   The only other piece of furniture is the old high chair (metal of course, with a multi-colored teddy bear pattern on its vinyl back and seat) that sits under the golden sunburst Westclox.  There is an oven set in the wall, a stove and vent-a-hood set in the counter, and a refrigerator/freezer, standing next to the sink.

[Something like this.]

It is the gap between sink and refrigerator that most concerns the boys, and they inspect it first.  The only thing there is the heavy, wooden, round, almost yard-wide Chinese checker board on which Mom and her friend Maggie (Aunt Margaret? No.) sometimes play. Mike double checks the kitchen chairs to make sure I am not reproducing his ploy.  They look under the kitchen sink, but find only the pipes, a clutch of cleansers (scandalously unsecured by today’s standards, but somehow we never did drink bleach—we were sensible lads, Mom had lectured us about the dangers, and we policed our younger members) and far off around the corner under the countertop the gleam of the electric coffee urn, a working relic of Pop’s entrepreneurial days, hauled out at family gatherings when a single pot just won’t do. Attention is turned to the pantry. 

The pantry is a tall thin closet with four shelves for food, a space at the bottom for a plastic bin for potatoes, and a space to the side for the broom, scoop, ironing board, and the clothes pin bag. The top shelf is for spices and canning supplies, the next shelf is canned goods of a shorter nature like tomato sauce, the next is cereal and taller can goods, and the bottom is for coffee, crackers, and way in the back, liquor bottles.  The pantry is a popular hiding place because you can hide standing up and there is a crack under the door for light.  They fling open the door in expectation.  I am not there.

Bafflement reigns. Mike asks Kenny if he checked everywhere.  They go back to the start to look again, this time even searching places in our room, where it began.  Under the bed, behind the headboard, in the closet (which, although it opens with a rumble like thunder, can be eased open quietly with a practiced hand), behind the door jangling with belts hanging on the inside knob, all these places are examined.  Every room is investigated again, but I am not to be found.

They end up in the kitchen again, stumped, intrigued, and a little mad.  Finally they have to give the seldom-used cry of “Ally, ally, oxen free-o!”  They are astonished and appalled when I pop out of the cabinet under the oven, because this is the cubby for the trash can. Admittedly it was not then the foul hole it eventually became (the walls were clean and there was a lid on the can), but we are conditioned not to have anything to do with garbage, and no one imaged I would have the fortitude to do it. It is, in short, a victory won by playing against our accepted conceptual norms.  My triumph is greeted with the usual mix of admiration and aggravation, and then it is time for lunch.

What Happened (Part 20)

 

This is the Dining Room, and we are very lucky to have a picture of it contemporary of the time.  You can see the old dining room table and its six padded vinyl chairs; what you can’t see is the wavy pattern of four lines on the top that border its outer edge that are just right for tracing with four little fingers. In the corner is the china cabinet that houses the green-and-white farm patterned dishware, which I never remember ever being used except for the cups, when we had big family gatherings and there weren’t enough for coffee.  In the corner is a small record cabinet.  In the earliest times there was a monster stereo console/radio against the divider wall (the radio never worked, but had a fascinating control dial you could adjust in a sci-fi manner), later replaced by a portable with built-in speakers. 

Always and ever hanging on the divider wall was a plaster sculpture, painted to look like bronze, of Jesus standing at the door and knocking with a gigantic key. Some weird plants that were probably meant to be bushes but looked like cactus to us Texas boys are growing around the door frame and beside Him. Hanging directly over the table is a lamp on an adjustable cord.

The dining room is sort of optional space, an area enshrined to respectability, a formal gathering spot most often passed by on the way to rooms where things actually happened. They almost do pass, just glancing over to make sure no-one is behind the curtains, when John notices something and points it out to Kenny. They rush over to the table and angle their heads down. Mike is hiding under it, stretched across two chairs so his feet won’t show.  He emerges looking pissed and punches Kenny on the shoulder for daring to find him.  This leaves only me to hunt down, and just one other room where I could be hiding.

{That is Mike and me in the photo. Even at this late date I remember wanting Mike's balloon because it had ears and mine did not.]

Mom's Shirley Temple Doll

Well, this isn't Mom's Shirley Temple doll, but one just like it. It was the only thing she still had from her childhood. After she went off to marry Pop, Nanny, her mother, sold off everything she left behind. Nanny was never a sentimental person and practical in the extreme. That is the charitable interpretation, though it always seemed rather vindictive to me. Nanny had always hoped that Mom would be a little money-making machine like Miss Temple, hence the doll. It reminds me of the story Mom told us once. She never had many toys (they were rather poor) but she did have a set of paper dolls. Nanny gave them away to the daughter of one of the customers at her beauty shop to ingratiate herself with the client.

Shirley had to wait through the birth of four rambunctious boys until finally my sister Susan was born. During that time her dress and shoes were destroyed and lost, her curls got rather ratty, and her butt tattooed with crayon. In the past few years Susan had the Ideal doll cleaned and restored and supplied with a new outfit, and she now sits pristinely in a display case. 

The Animals From on Top of the Room Divider

These animal figures topped the wall divider for years. The buffalo (for Mike), the bear (for me), and the German shepherd (-which we called a wolf- for Kenny) were all from a company named Breyer and are hollow molded plastic. John's totem beast was the boxer dog, a ceramic figure that I believe was from Napco. We never did select a figure for Susan. The center place on the shelf was occupied through the years by a little bowl of artificial flowers, the Snoopy bowling trophy, and other odds and ends. The totems reside to this day on a high shelf in my own home.
 

What Happened (Part 19)

Once more through the hall, and then they enter the Living Room. The space is largely dominated by a set of cowboy furniture with a wagon wheel motif, the backs stitched with pictures of the heads of cows and horses.  A couch, two end tables, and a long coffee table face the picture window, which is one big central plate with two small wings that slide open. In front of the window, by the front door, is the rocking recliner, which can be ridden back and forth and holds two boys comfortably and three or more cozily. Next to that is the arm chair.  The stitching on this furniture is fascinating to brush under the fingers and the spokes make interesting environments for playing with little plastic animals.

There is a room divider with a shelf at the top between the living room and the dining room; the divider is hollow and made of faux wood planks, and booms if you knock on it.  On it hangs a mirror shelved for knick-knacks, and under the mirror is the big TV, focus of the room.  A couple of pictures painted by Nanny (a moose entering a mountain lake and a desert road) adorn the walls, and a big brown hooked rug covers most of the floor.  Lighting at this period is supplied by two small shaded wall lamps (a wedding present) on either end of the couch; the most interesting light is a lamp shaped like a hollow pot inset with marbles that threw interesting colored shadows; it sits on the TV.

[Not quite like this; ours was fatter.]

The front door has three small rectangular windows arranged in steps; the taller of us, if we stand on tiptoe, can peek out to the front porch.  Kenny and John peer behind the couch and under the curtains, then head around the divider. 

Finding Dori

I have always loved this frame from the Rankin/Bass Hobbit, and it is in fact at the moment both the background screen of my computer and on the banner of my Facebook page. But as I've realized on and off through the years, it only contains images of twelve of the dwarves. Checking with my Abrams copy of "The Hobbit" to be sure, from left to right they are Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Thorin in the foreground, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bombur, and Bofur. By process of elimination that leaves Dori (probably hidden behind Thorin) as the dwarf not shown, which is rather ironic as he is one of the three or four dwarves who actually get individual speaking parts throughout the special. Here is a screen grab with Dori in the line-up, and Bombur back in his place in Thorin's roll call.

What Happened (Part 18)

Mom and Pop’s Room is at this end of the hall.  The guest room has one window, our room has two; but this master bedroom has three.  One faces the front porch, one the front yard, and the last towards an empty lot and field with a distant screen of trees.  This room is different from all others in the house as it is paneled with light blonde wood board and has a new, dark wood bedroom set. Two things always hang in Mom and Pop’s room: their marriage license and a group photo of Pop’s family. 

The headboard has a long shelf with two small cabinets with sliding doors on either side.  The shelf holds a small alarm clock with a dark face and luminous numbers (so Pop can get up when he needs to go to work, which can be odd hours), the cabinets are for personal items.  Mom’s usually has a box of tissues and Pop’s has a number of Westerns.  Of interest to us kids is the top of the dresser, which is where Mom keeps her wicker-style musical jewelry box (wound up and played on special occasions and its small treasures displayed) and her “foof,” an old fashioned perfume jar with an atomizer that is almost empty, but still sprayed now and then so we can enjoy the ghost of a passing sweetness.  

The spaces under the bed and behind the headboard are prime hiding spots.  Kenny holds down the pillows to look in and sees the friendly freckled face of John grimaced into a wry grin of disappointment.  He tries to twist away because you are not officially caught until tagged, but there’s nowhere to go as Kenny reaches in and taps him, messing up the bed a little as he does.  He’ll get a little grief from Mom for that later (we all will, since we were all playing), but for now he is triumphant.  John wriggles out and joins him, and the hunt continues.

What Happened (Part 17)

 

The Hall connecting the three bedrooms and bathroom is completely empty, except for the rotary phone hanging on the wall and a small painting by Nanny of a sea-plane landing on a lake.  This is where all phone conversations are made, standing. Kenny looks in the bathroom, checks behind the door and in the tub.  He pulls aside the curtain that covers the shelves that hold the dirty clothes, the towels and washrags, and the mysterious upper tier that holds the douche and other feminine accoutrements, including an ancient medical book.  Down in the dirty clothes, Spotty (sometimes called Nip-Nip because of the sound her nails make on the floor), our little black-white-and-tan terrier, lifts her head, smiles, and thumps her tail against the wall. No brothers, though. He moves on.

[Not Spotty, but close.]

What Happened (Part 16)

A quick game of hide-and-seek might help more thoroughly describe and explore the house.  Let’s start in the Boy’s Bedroom.  We’ll designate Kenny as the seeker, this time.  He might lean his head against the small drop-leaf table in the corner next to the closet. “On your mark, get set, go!” Then the slow count begins as we scramble away.  Some clue to the general directions we go might be got from the sound of our fading footsteps, but the more cunning of us learn how to trample softly away.  He reaches ten and the search begins.

He looks rather uneasily into the guest room.  It is called the Toy Room, because of the often wall-to-wall sea of toys that are spilled from the closet where they are supposed to be piled.  But it is also a rather lonesome room, because nobody sleeps there, unless you are sick and quarantined, eating soup and crackers and orange-flavored baby aspirin.  The room has a single bed in the corner, a long gray dresser with infant things in the drawers, and the old crib Lambie, also called the “cib-cib.” No-one would dare hide in the closet there, because of the monstrous Hoofer said to guard its mysteries. But a glance under the cib-cib and behind the door is necessary to assure him that no-one is there. He hurries on.

What Happened (Part 15)

Once the wash was done we’d be herded back inside. Now might be the time to amuse ourselves with a serious bout of playing, until it’s time for lunch.  Among our amusements might be pretending to fall down the hall, or wear someone like a bearskin coat, or putting your ear to the floor to hear the Hoofer’s footsteps as he walked upside down on the other side of the boards, or sliding on the floor, or being a wizard in Mom’s old rose-patterned bathrobe, or playing one of the wall heaters like a zither.  In fact, when I was very small, everything had to be struck or strummed to see what sound it made, from the springs on the crib to the tubular pipes of the swing set.  Everything had to be felt, from the scratchy fake wood of the sliding closet doors to the smooth surface of the dining room table.  Everything had to be tasted, from the sweet stems of clover to the coppery tang of pennies to the delicious but deadly lead paint of the window sill.

We might hold a meeting of the Black Cat Club behind the closed door of the bathroom, with Mike as President enthroned on the toilet while the rest of us lined up on the edge of the tub. Aside from some jockeying for the position of Vice-President (often ending up with three), I honestly cannot reveal what went on at these gatherings—not because of any vow of secrecy, but because I don’t recall a single substantive discussion or decision we ever made.  But it was our club, our secret club, and no one but the Babel Boys were allowed. 

What Happened (Part 14)

Another diversion might be the garden, which was the only division of the back yard at the time; there is no chicken coop, no dog pens, and no shed.  The only real boundary is the fence between Mr. Friedeck’s yard and ours.  There is a little gate in the middle of that. We have three fruit trees (two peach and one plum) that never produce much fruit but are a haven and hang-out for wasps.  In summer there are rows of corn and squash and tomatoes and green beans to walk up and down in, hunting bugs and eating beans.  In fall and winter, after plowing, there are dirt clods for epic throwing battles or building walls and houses. These fights are good for practicing dodging as well as throwing, and we are seldom badly hurt unless we catch a clod to the face.  Rocks are strictly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, but clods are softer and disintegrate spectacularly on impact.

[This picture is from some time later, of course, in 1972. We're all squinting from the sun. Mike is holding a rubber snake and a rubber alligator. John and I are barefoot. Kenny is wearing the 'Snoopy' shirt, which features a dog - a sort of Snoopy knock-off - and a hydrant, repeated many times.]

What Happened (Part 13)

While we were pinned down watching the show, Mom would wash the breakfast dishes, clean the bathroom, maybe start a load of clothes in the washing machine, and sweep the house.  By the time the show was over, and a desultory clicking around the four channels to see if there was anything good on, it might be time to accompany her as she went out to hang up the wash on the clothesline. This is a fine opportunity to take a tour of the back yard while she does so.  She unhooks the hanging bag of clothespins from inside the kitchen cabinet and we all troop out the back door.

Now at this long ago time the yard, though well-defined, has no fence, so Mom has to keep a close eye on us.  When Kenny and John were small, they were put in a playpen near the back door, well shaded by one of the two young ash trees that sheltered the house there.  She’d bring out the basket of clothes and head out to the clothes line.  It was a four line affair, strung between two goalpost-like ends (shorter at the time, and later extended to more than twice its length as the family grew up and got larger). As Mom hung up the load, especially if it was sheets or towels, it would become a delightful maze that we’d romp in and out of. We might zip-line the clothes pin bag from one end to the other while Mom had a mouthful of pins to use. When she used those up she’d call for more and we’d bring them over; as the bag grew lighter it was harder to whizz from side to side.

     If the wash held no interest at the time, we might amuse ourselves on the old swing set.  Our first set was a tubular metal model with two swings, a slide, and a teeter-totter, and was a dull red color, with green accents.  As we were very young we had to be pushed on the swings, taking it in turns as we went along. Mike learned how to swing himself first, of course, and then me and John. Eventually we developed an elaborate system of swing fights, basically jousting at each other while facing opposite directions and kicking and grabbing with your legs. You could test your courage climbing up on the slide (which at four feet seemed dangerously high) and sliding down, or if you were more chicken inching yourself down holding the side rails. The rhythmic back and forth of the swings and of the teeter-totter leant themselves to “playings” (the concept of “playings” deserves a more thorough analysis than it will get right now) and storytelling. One particular favorite teeter-totter tale I recall playing again and again was Popeye and Bluto going to Olive Oil’s house, each player alternately yelling as they reached the top of the swing arc, “I’m going to Olive’s house!” “No, I’m going to Olive’s house!” “It’s this way!” “No, it’s that way!”

What Happened (Part 12)

Once dressed, we’d thunder into the living room, where it was just about time to watch Captain Kangaroo.  We’d sing “Jing-jing Jing-jing, Jing-jing Jing-jing, Jing-a-jing, Jing-a-jing, Jing-Jing-Jing!” along to the opening strains of “Puffin Billy.” The Captain would appear, first looking through the myriad panels of the front door of the Treasure House before opening it, then he’d stroll across the room jingling his key ring before hanging it on the wall, and the show would begin. Captain Kangaroo’s house was a wonderful place, with every shelf and drawer full of toys, books, and crafts, and a Magic Drawing Board that showed various simple animations while playing popular songs fit for children.  Tunes I remember were Walking to New Orleans, Herkimer the Homely Doll, and The Puppet Song. There was a talking Grandfather Clock and an old-fashioned Radio (my life-long desire to have examples of both of these for real must stem from this). The puppets Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit would plot to drop showers of ping pong balls and steal the carrots from the Captain’s pockets. Captain Kangaroo would read stories like Curious George, Make Way for Ducklings, Stone Soup, Caps for Sale, and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Mr. Green Jeans, the Captain’s handyman, would bring in animals to show.  There were segments featuring “visits” with Dancing Bear and the Town Clown. There was one black-and-white cartoon I remember starring a “funnel-capped shape-shifting boy” named Tom Terrific. Tom had a sidekick named Mighty Manfred the Wonder Dog, and a main enemy, Crabby Appleton.

1979 Yearbook

 

From the 1979 Seguin High School yearbook - we did not have the money to buy any photos or a yearbook that year, but someone has started reprinting pages of Facebook lately. So these images come back home to us at last.

DVD Library: The Maltese Falcon

 

Today I went to the Family Dollar a couple of blocks from the house. Since it was the first of December, I wanted to get some chocolate cherries and some candy covered pretzels and some eggnog, which I did. But then I saw the little stand of DVDs and I thought to myself, "This looks like a pretty poor selection. But maybe somewhere there is something worthwhile. I'm going to look through them all to make sure." And so I did, and among the dross I did find some things that tickled my fancy. There was a copy of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (not as fancy as the edition I already own) and a "Best of Duck Tales" (from the new iteration I have been enjoying, which has been on now since 2017 - how time flies!). But as you can see, the movie I walked away with was "The Maltese Falcon".

It's a pretty basic version, though it has a few extras. I only recently got into films like this, but every time it's on TCM these days I feel compelled to watch it and since I never see it completely, having the DVD on hand is great. Bogart's Spade's resourcefulness is great (without being superhuman), and Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet are wonderful foils. Mary Astor's scheming character as she plays everyone against everyone while looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth makes her an equal player in the schemes surrounding the Black Bird. And John Huston's directing? So good!

What Happened (Part 11)

Weekday dressing was pretty casual, usually a pullover shirt and a pair of shorts.  Our clothes were kept in a little green dresser.  Mike and I shared the top drawer, John and Kenny the next, and the bottom was for Sunday shoes and belts.  The drawers were subdivided, with one kid’s clothes on the right and another’s on the left, with a common pile of socks and underwear to share in the middle. There was a taller set of dresser drawers in the corner of the room with our jeans and pants in the bottom; the rest was parental storage, not to be messed with.  Button shirts and everyday shoes (sneakers) were in the left side of the closet, with blankets, sheets and stuff in the right. We didn’t bother with shoes most of the time.  The house had smooth, polished wood floors inside and thick cool carpet grass outside.

[This was taken at Omi's house; That's our cousin Yvette standing next to Mike holding Kenny. Omi's little peach tree (never very good at making ripe peaches, but always a source of fallen green peaches and collectable stones, is behind us. Not sure about the other girl and the baby.]

 

Corkboard Memories: The Fall of It All, or Tree and Leaf

 

What Happened (Part 10)

 

After breakfast it was bath time.  We usually took baths two or three together at a time (when babies came along they got a wash in the kitchen sink, or in the small enamel tub that hung outside the back door).  Mom would spread a used towel from the dirty clothes as a makeshift bathmat, set the plug, and balance the hot and cold water.  A fresh towel was set on the closed toilet seat and our underwear (which we called panties for a long time, because that’s the term Mom used) was set on the tank, and she would leave us to it.  We’d shuck whatever we were wearing and jump in, pretty gradually if we thought it too hot or too cold.  There would be a fair amount of horseplay and splashing each other, and pretend drinking of bathwater out of bath toys like Wally Gator or Spouty Whale.  Then we’d push the plug down to drain the tub, and get out one by one, using the clean towel to dry off, it getting damper and damper with each use, of course.  Nobody wanted to be last.  Once we dried we slipped our underwear on and went to get dressed.  Mom would come in to clean when we were done, and too soppy a towel on the floor was sure to draw a reprimand.

Corkboard Memories: Thanksgiving

Corkboard Memories: Talking Turkey