Thanksgiving Shopping

I haven’t written in a while. Don’t know why. Writer’s block perhaps. Bored perhaps. It certainly isn’t because life hasn’t provided more than its share of the bizarre worthy of putting down on paper (there’s an anachronistic metaphor).

If anything, I haven’t had the space in my head to really think about being coherent. That being said, if I did more writing, I’d probably have more space in my head to be coherent. That discipline thing has always been a challenge for me.

So I’ve been thinking more and more through the past week that I need to start writing again. And then, the breakthrough happened.

It was all because of a guy named John. That’s his real name. John. I’ve talked to John before, on several occasions. I think John is probably in management, but sometimes he works the cashier line at the Schnucks’ in Webster Groves. Schnucks’. “The Friendliest Store In Town.” Schnucks’ supermarkets made the front page of the WSJ a couple of years ago as having the shortest wait times for checking out of any major chain in the country. My anecdotal experience leads me to believe that that statistic is true.

So today Dan and I were doing our Thanksgiving shopping. All of it. From Wednesday evening through Saturday morning. Plus a few extras thrown in on top of all that. As I stood in the checkout line and watched John pass barcode after barcode over the little red laser light, I watched the number at the bottom of the video screen conveniently placed for everyone to see. It was growing, and growing. Over $260. I was – in a word – appalled. That was even after my 75 cent coupon.

Now as Dan will attest I am no stranger to getting into conversations with the cashiers at Schnucks’. One still remembers Mom coming through, and we’ve talked about that. I know too much information about some of these people. But I’ve never really talked to John.

So as I was swiping the card through the reader to pay for this monstrous grocery cart of gluttony, I said to John, “You know, where we shopped before we moved here – they would give us a free ice cream cone if we spent more than a hundred buck.” You go Stew Leonard’s. So John starts looking around “Here’s a pen,” he says as he tries to hand me a ballpoint. We laugh. He makes some snide comment I can’t remember. Dan and I walk out to the parking lot.

So there we are loading the mountain of groceries into the back of the car. And all of a sudden I hear “Excuse me.” It was John. He had followed us out into the parking lot. He says “This is instead of your damn ice cream cone.” And he hands me a $3.00 off coupon for my next visit to Schnucks.’

Except for the cursing, it certainly does seem like the friendliest store in town.

The "Pink" Bathroom

            Actually the pink bathroom isn’t pink at all. It’s peach. My fantasy is that it was inspired by some issue of Architectural Digest circa 1945. Peach wall tiles with black trim. Small peach and white tiles in a checkerboard pattern on the floor. A peach ceramic countertop with two small vanity sinks in opposite corners, complete with vintage American Standard faucets. Separate hot and cold faucets though.

            When we moved into the house, there were these stenciled patterns on the bathroom walls. In the pink bathroom, where a crown molding might go, there were intertwined painted ribbons, white and a kind of spring green. The panels beneath the sink, again primarily peach, had white roses and green leaves painted on them. Two sink mirrors with etched glass finished it all off.

            Now I suppose my parents figured this was the feminine bathroom, because the one immediately next door was essentially the same, but in green. Even though it too had the stenciled flowers on the drawers in a vanity and on the wall, it was, after all, green. The other strange thing about these bathrooms was that they have identical windows, double-hung, non-tinted, regular glass, that look out on the front yard. Which means that anyone in the yard, or in the street for that matter, can look into the bathroom and see you. The venetian blinds are supposed to help with that small issue of modesty, but that means shutting out all natural light, which enhances the somewhat depressed feeling now present in these one-time repainted, but not re-stenciled bathrooms.

            I’m thinking that master bedroom suites weren’t yet invented in the forties. So since my parents’ bedroom did not have its own bathroom, the four of us shared these two bathrooms. Mom, Dad, my sister and me.

            The strange thing I never quite have figured out was that until I was well into puberty, I was relegated to use the pink bathroom with my mother and sister. I must have been thirteen or so before I graduated to the green one, with its walk-in shower instead of a tub. And I had to share a sink with my father, who had some very distinctly different paraphernalia which adorned the white porcelain shelf. And there I stayed until I left to go to college.

            By the time I was coming home on breaks, Dad had “remodeled” the third bathroom in the walk-out basement. Ceramic brick tile adorned the floor, and it appeared my dad had gone around to various construction sites to get the tile for the shower.

            But in the past year Dad started using the green bathroom again. I cleaned up the one in the basement, which meant going through the drawers of a dresser which was in my childhood bedroom and getting rid of most of the accumulated crap. Ancient used tubes of Brylcream, bottles of Old Spice, rusty metal Band-Aid boxes, and some really old washcloths mysteriously disappeared into the trash.

            When Mom died and we moved in, it didn’t make sense on any level to be back in the masculine bathroom. So, perhaps appropriately, Dan and I took over the pink one. I mean the peach one. Thank God for my sister who was able to clean that one out. What a trooper. There was stuff in there neither one of us wanted to know about. Forty years worth. Expired bottles of things were a no-brainer. Angela managed to fill up a couple of garbage bags with most of the rest.

            So now every morning I’m showering in an ancient bathtub. Most people have the regular prerequisites in their tubs – soap, shampoo, a cloth or lufa of some sort. Me, I add to that collection abrasive cleanser and a sponge, which I stand on as I take my shower and try to work off some of the residue from the years. The walls to the best of my knowledge were last painted in about 1975, and probably haven’t been cleaned since, so in the moisture and dirt mixture on the wall high above the tile that you face while you shower, I’ve been able to write “Hi Dan!” much like you see tractor-trailer trucks going down the highway and some kid has written “Wash Me” on the back doors with their fingers. So far Dan hasn’t said anything, which doesn’t surprise me. Details like that don’t often catch his attention. He had three older brothers.

            Me – I’ve spent way too much time looking at these walls and trying to figure out what color could complement peach and black. I just haven’t been able to come up with anything that didn’t make me think of Baskin’s Robbins’. So when the local hardware store put Laura Ashley paint on sale at 70% off, I jumped at the opportunity to save a buck, took one of the wooden peach shelves

in to get a color match, and came home with cheap designer paint. Peach.

            Looking back, I can see that those early years in that bathroom are probably what turned me gay. I would lay there in the tub, gaze upon those peach walls and the white roses, and marvel at the work that went into creating this tribute to post-war interior decorating. Of course, although I don’t remember, other things probably happened in that tub as well. I was, after all, thirteen. This leaves me with a fascination with bathroom design. The really frightening things I have to admit is that many years later, when we were rehabbing our century-old Victorian in Connecticut, there was a small half-bath right outside our bedroom door. Since there really was no tile on the walls in this bathroom, we decided to put in wainscoting. We then picked out a wall paper – surprisingly yet stereotypically feminine – little primroses in vertical vines growing up the wall. I took a piece of the paper to the paint store, and in serious consultation with the guy who worked there, came home with two quarts of hot pink paint for the wainscoting. Neon. Cotton Candy pink. Or, since it was a bathroom, perhaps I should say Pepto-Bismol pink.

            It’s nice to be back in the “peach” bathroom.

War medals and what not

So today was a very rainy day. I had planned on working outside, but that didn’t work out. (Was that bad English?)

So we’re trying to clear out one of the many desks in this house to give to Dad for his bedroom so he has a place to sit and do stuff.

So we identified the desk.

So I decided to spend the morning emptying out the (only two) drawers in this desk and clear the crap away so he would have a couple of drawers in which to put treasures.

So I opened Drawer #1. Inside were peach pits. Very old peach pits. Lots of old business cards and other cards that certified my father’s memberships in professional organizations as well as the I Love George Bush Club.

Old pencils. Old pencil leads for mechanical pencils. Rubber bands so brittle they broke when I picked them up. Negatives of photographs on those little 110 pocket camera film which no one under the age of forty even knew existed. A Spanish postcard with a naked woman on it. Letters from my uncles. Flag pins with the Cross of Christ superimposed on them.

I looked at all of this and dug in. I had a stack of old business cards, including some of them wrapped in one of those brittle rubber bands with a piece of paper labeling them as “Obsolete Cards.” Glad we kept those. Anyway, I put them all together, a stack about six inches in length, and carried them upstairs and said “Dad, I have a project for you. Why don’t you go through all these cards and throw away the ones you don’t need anymore.” He said, at one point, “There’s a lot of memories in those cards.” My point exactly. Going through them would be so much better than just throwing them away, which he eventually did – to most anyway.

But while I was speaking with him, Dan came upstairs and was in the kitchen fixing lunch. I walked in and he said to me, “Why was your father decorated as a war hero by the Nazis?” WTF? “What?” I said. “There’s a medal down there with a swastika on it.” WTF? “What?” I said.

So I go back down and look in the pile that is still in the drawer, and lo and behold, there is a medal, complete with ribbon, and a bronze cross with swords and a swastika right in the middle. I grabbed it, went back upstairs, and said to Dad, “WTF?” Well, not really. But I did say “What the hell is this?”

Dad’s brother, as indicated earlier in this blog, was in Patton’s army in WWII. Evidently he picked up this medal – let’s not go to a discussion of how or where from – while he served in Europe. And he brought the medals home. Dad said he gave it to their mother. Most of her belongings are STILL in this house. So that made some sense.

Some quick internet research betrayed that this sucker is a Knights Cross of the War Merit Cross, a minor yet somewhat rare decoration given to individuals “for exceptional service in battle above and beyond the call of duty” by the German Army. There are variations on the medal, but that appears to be what this one was for. Also, evidently, Hermann Göring wanted one, but Hitler wouldn’t give it to him.

But I’ve got one sitting in a desk drawer.

I shared all of this with Dad and then had some lunch.

Afterwards I attacked the drawer again. More garbage. Cards. Scraps of paper with out-of-date addresses and phone numbers. A plethora of those silly little return address stickers from countless not-for-profits. And then…another medal.

This one was for women. Specifically women of Aryan descent. Pure women. Pure women who were doing their patriotic duty by having lots of pure Aryan children. They come in three varieties – bronze, silver and gold – depending upon the number of children a woman had. Need I say more.

These things are clearly, in a way, keepsakes. But it creeps me out that they are in the house. I said to Dad, “We won’t be displaying these in the china cabinet.” No. But pulling them out of a drawer of crap and putting them in a safe place seems to make some sense.

The family home as an archaeological project. It never ends.

Just my random thoughts of the day about politics

Is it just me or is the Republican party just getting scarier and scarier?

The New York Times today lists the following individuals as potential presidential candidates for the Republican party in 2012 (in order of appearance in the article): Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Ron Paul, Haley Barbour, John Thune, and Jim DeMint.

Now I’m a registered Democrat, but only because I like participating in the primary process. I have rarely voted a straight-party-line ticket. Chris Shays had my vote in many election cycles as a Republican from CT-4. I also voted for Joe Lieberman, who basically is a Republican wannabe. I’m a big fan of John Danforth. And bring me any senator from the great state of Maine.

But Rick Santorum? Jim DeMint? Not to mention Russia’s neighbor. It scares me when I look at a list of Republican candidates and I find Mitt Romney attractive. I mean, what’s with the hair?

I actually find myself missing George I, Ron, and even Dick. These guys at least, in my opinion, thought a moment or two before they spoke. They may not have taken leadership positions in the ways I would have liked them to, but they did try to be constructive.

I feel like I’m in some sort of bizarre twist of the Twilight Zone. It’s the Twilight Zone because its all kind of spooky and weird. It’s a twist because it’s not pretend, it’s real.

St. Louis is a highly educated, progressive metropolitan area, by and large. Dan and I have always felt safe and, dare I say, welcomed here. Gawd knows the Housewives of Joy Avenue and I have hit it off, creating our own weird Wisteria Lane.

But even here there is a twist of the strange. Today we had an in-home assessment for Dad. There’s a great organization here in town that helps support senior citizens (hate that title – open for suggestions) in their homes. The nurse came by today, along with some other woman whose role I never fully understood. After the initial preliminaries, the nurse asked us – keep in mind the was Assessment Inventory Question Number One – “Do you have any guns in the house?” I confess that I took the Lord’s name in vain. Not what I was expecting. Of course Dad’s response was typical Dad: “We gave all the good ones away.” Thanks Dad. Big help. Yes we have guns, but just the crappy ones.

That’s what scares me about these folk in the Times’ line-up. They all have guns, but they’re crappy ones. Sarah needs a helicopter to shoot hers. Newt just keeps getting rid of wives. Mike and Rick have their Bibles as protective armor. George Pataki? Are they serious? George Pataki? Has the New York Times looked at Albany lately? Not that David Paterson is Pataki’s fault – far from it. But his presence is still, again IMHO, a reaction to the Pataki years. Just look at who the Republican nominee is for the Empire State.

Okay, so I’m done ranting and raving for tonight. The next few weeks are going to be interesting. The next couple of years – well, I’m just afraid. Canada, got any room?

Birthdays

September 11 has become a rather strange day in this home. My mother was born on September 11, 1937, in Joplin, Missouri. Aside from the passing of years, there was nothing ever particularly noteworthy about the date. People born on January 1, always here “Oh, were you the New Year’s baby?” Or people born on the Fourth of July are subjected to wonderfully witty remarks like “Did fireworks go off for you?” Dad gets that a bit – he was born on July 3.

But September 11 was always, well, just there.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was seeing a patient of mine in my Connecticut office, and then I had the rest of the morning off. His appointment was at 8 AM, and we finished at the end of the therapist’s hour, that is to say forty-five minutes later. I climbed into my car to drive the long ride home of approximately one mile. I had the radio on, as I almost always did, and it was tuned in to WCBS 880 AM out of New York. In that mile, I was listening to the breaking news about a plane or something hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Well, it was always bound to happen I thought.

I arrived home, and found Dan glued to CNN. I looked at the television images, and sat down, stunned. Shortly afterward, on TV, we watched the second plane hit the South Tower. Clearly, we were now in a new world.

Then we heard about the Pentagon. And the multiple rumors about other planes in other places, and those unaccounted for.

My sister lives in DC. My parents had no idea where their kids might be. It was not unusual for me to be in the concourse under the World Trade Center. I had no idea where my sister was, although I knew that the Pentagon was a good distance from her home in suburban Maryland.

So I called home, partly to wish Mom a Happy Birthday, but also to let them know I was okay. I couldn’t get through to DC, but I did get my (now ex-)brother-in-law an email, and he said that he and Angela were fine.

Mom wasn’t up yet. She, like myself, was never a morning person. And it was an hour earlier in St. Louis. So I talked to Dad, who was unaware of what was going on. “Turn on the TV,” I said.

Of course we all have our stories of that day. I heard someone on NPR this week say that it was our generation’s Kennedy assassination. Not sure that I totally agree with that conclusion, but I get the point.

But through the past years, I have felt badly for my mother. I remember when she said that she was changing her birthday. Her father’s birthday was September 3, and she told me in no uncertain terms that she was changing her birthday to that date. This was because she would go place and do things in the course of normal life and be asked what her date of birth was, and she would say “September 11, ….” And she would hear the articulate response, drawn out into a multisyllabic experience, “Ooooooh.”

Mom would have been 73 today.

I remember coming home from grad school one year, and just being down. I was in a funk and didn’t know why. It was Thanksgiving, and I had just celebrated my 27th birthday on November 20. This was in the days when people could meet you at the gate. I walked off the plane and the jetway, and I saw my dad, my mom, and my sister standing there, and it hit me like a lightning bolt. I was crossing a threshold. I saw my mother, and I realized I remembered her 27^th birthday. As I get ready to celebrate my own 50^th birthday, I realize I’m not as down as I was at 27, or 37, or even 47. Fifty feels okay. I’m not going to make my goal, I believe, of being in all fifty states by the time I turn fifty. Getting to Nebraska I could do on a weekend. But getting to Alaska – well, I don’t think that’s in the cards.

I look at 23 year-olds today, and I try to imagine what my mother was like when I was born and she was 23. A child. But those are conversations that will be revealed in another way and in another dimension of reality. For the time being, it is September 11. And I am profoundly aware of the tension between celebrating life, and mourning loss.

From Nine Years Ago

September 14, 2001

I thought I'd let some of you know about my day yesterday.

I went into the city early for a 7:30 AM appointment with a patient. Walking down Lexington from Grand Central I could see the smoke. The patient didn't show up and I still haven't been able to connect with him. He's relatively new, an investment banker, and I realize I don't know where his office is. A couple came in at 8:15 for their appointment. He had seen the first plane hit and was obviously traumatized. They left at 9:15, and I didn't have any more appointments until 5:30 in the afternoon. All morning long I had been hearing sirens.

So I went for a walk. The first thing that I encountered was a block from my office, on 34th Street, where a convoy of some ten army vehicles were heading west. I headed downtown and crosstown, knowing that there were police barricades at 14th Street. When I got to Sixth Avenue, I got my first live view of the smoke-filled void. Those of you who are familiar with the city and have been around know what that feels like. I remember when I visited New York for the first time as a nine-year-old child, the Twin Towers were under construction, half-way high. In the years since I've lived in and around New York I've become quite accustomed to turning a corner here or walking down a street there and having them be a part of the landscape. The void is real.

Of course I was like all the other obnoxious New Yorkers with their cell phones and I was talking on it as I was going down the street. Engrossed by what I was witnessing and the conversation I was having on the phone, all of a sudden I realized that I had crossed 14th Street and gone through a police barricade without evening realizing it. The police were supposed to stop everyone and only let residents and emergency workers south of there, but in my jeans and preppy shirt I guess I just blended in with everyone and no one stopped me.

So further south I went. Now things were substantially different in that there were no cars or trucks driving around, except for emergency vehicles with flashing lights. There were few people on the street, mostly local residents who were out and trying to live their lives. People walking their dogs. Some shops were open, mostly corner delis and small restaurants. The smoke ever billowed before me as I went. I reached Houston Street, the second police checkpoint after the one at 14th. It was clear these guys were more intent on keeping people out. Appropriately. So I decided to walk to both ends of Houston and just see what was up. The street itself, one of the few two-way streets in Manhattan, is separated with a median running down the middle. On one side of the median, block after block, large dump trucks were parked. On the other side, again block after block, were refrigerated trailers -- as in tractor-trailers. Police were everywhere -- not just NYPD, but from all over the country. Soldiers or guardsmen with automatic rifles were visible. I walked to West Street, which runs along the Hudson River. There was a huge staging area for the emergency workers and volunteers at Pier 40 at the end of Houston. It was here that I got the view that is so familiar to us all of the New York skyline -- without the towers. I walked out to the median in the middle of West Street and just stood, stunned, watching the smoke rise above downtown. Behind me there was a group of police stopping all sorts of vehicles -- cars with flashing lights, police cars, dump trucks, supply trucks, busses filled with firemen. Each was stopped, some searched, some cars turned away. I watched as a group of firemen from somewhere -- there jackets said PRFD -- got out of a station wagon and came out to the median, waiting for a bus with some room to take them down to Ground Zero, as it's being called. Other trucks and busses would come back up on the other side from downtown -- busses empty, trucks filled with pieces of what used to be a building. As one person was quoted saying in the newspaper, "I never expected to see the World Trade Center go by me down the street."

I stood there for fifteen minutes or so. I wasn't alone. One guy was on his cell phone. I stayed off mine because there was something about being there that felt sacred. Other people were taking pictures -- press perhaps. Others were I suspect from the neighborhood, just out feeling I imagine as stunned as I did.

Then she arrived. Early twenties I suspect. I didn't notice her at first, but then I noticed that as some of the trucks were coming back up from the site, she would hold up a sheet of paper with the picture of someone on it. She would hold it up high, wanting the drivers to see the picture. She had a ream of paper, all with a copy of this picture of who, her sister? a friend? I don't know who the woman in the picture was, but she was beautiful, young, blond. Her nickname, according to what I saw on the paper as the woman came to the other side of the median to show the picture to the passing busses filled with firemen, her nickname was "Maggie." And she worked on the 96th floor of Tower 1.

I had to leave. I started back up Houston. It was noon. I was hungry. I needed not only food, I needed something familiar, something that felt okay. Dew Drop Inn. Great place on Greenwich Avenue. One of my favorites. I headed for it. Still no traffic, nowhere in Greenwich Village. Most shops were closed but some where open. The Dew Drop Inn was not. So I headed back north, bought a paper, went through the 14th Street barricade, and re-entered the free world. I was on Seventh Avenue, right at St. Vincent's Hospital, the primary ER for all of this. There were news trucks with their satellite dishes everywhere. One truck was covered with flyers like the ones the woman had on West Street. In fact, there was "Maggie" taped to the side of the truck. I would discover for the rest of the day that signs like these of missing people were up all over the city. I was close to Maryanne's. The first time I went to Maryanne's for Mexican food was 17 years ago when I was in seminary. Seemed like a good place to go back to.

Finishing lunch I realized I was close to St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The rector there, Dennis Winslow, is a good friend. He and his partner Mark live in a great apartment on the Jersey side of the Hudson. I had heard that they had heard the first plane come in low, and went out on their balcony and watched the whole thing. I was wondering how they were holding up, so I walked a few short blocks over to the church to see if Dennis was there. He was. He and Mark were having lunch, and were getting ready to return to the Seamen's Church Institute, a great old outreach agency downtown. In the middle of it. They said the institute was open to emergency workers, giving meals, water, a place to rest. What the institute didn't have was electricity, so they couldn't photocopy the flyer they had to get word out to the thousands of rescue workers telling them they were open for business. So Dennis had copied the flyer on the church copier. And they had some big boxes of candles and other supplies that they were taking downtown. They asked me if I wanted to go. I declined. I helped them load their van with the supplies, and then changed my mind. I decided to go. And so I'm heading back downtown, this time in a car.

As we anticipated getting to the checkpoint at 14th Street, I told them that if there was any problem I would get out and let them go on their way. They were both wearing clerical collars, which often works as a passport. The sexton from the parish was in the car with us. At Union Square, 14th Street and Broadway, we hit the first check point. Our ID's were all checked, Dennis told the police what we were up to, and they waved us through. Heading down Broadway, we were on the other side of town from where I had been earlier. We were downwind. The smoke hung over lower Broadway like fog. It smelled --reminding me of the rare times I've smelled a burning home. Somebody behind us -- the only other vehicle moving on lower Broadway besides us -- blew their siren to get by. At Houston Street again we had to go through a checkpoint. After the second checkpoint there were even fewer cars and people on the street. Like a ghost town. And yet I saw a woman, wearing a face mask so as not to breathe the dust, walking her dog, which did not have a face mask.

At Canal Street, we came to the third checkpoint.

I am blessed to be too young to have been drafted into Vietnam, and too old to have volunteered for the Persian Gulf. But I can sadly say that I have now been to a war zone.

Below Canal, everything began to be a little active again. There were people in the streets, clearly residents of the neighborhood, most wearing face masks or bandanas. Emergency vehicles were everywhere. Lots of people in camouflage with guns. Flags were flying. The air was thick with smoke and dust. Tension was palpable. And yet, at the same time, because it all of a sudden was so real and so immediate, there was not a sense of fear. People were doing their jobs.

We arrived at the Seamen's Church Institute and unloaded the van. Their appreciation of what we brought was filled with joy, and yet that appreciation was immediately followed by "Can you get us some hamburger and hot dog buns? Also, we need Advil, Tylenol..." and the list grew.

But first we had another task to do. We were to distribute the flyers. We were joined by a woman from General Seminary who had been volunteering down there. The four of us grabbed masks, and went out to pass out flyers and get them to the command centers. We got as far as Wall Street, but there we encountered huge numbers of workers standing around, looking. It seemed that they had evacuated "the pit" because of fears that One Liberty Plaza – a 55-story building -- was about to fall. We also discovered that word had spread around about the Seaman's Institute, and that for the current shift they didn't need the flyers. We decided to go back, and people later could spread the word for later shifts. No one was working at the moment, and so we headed back to the Institute.

Lots of firemen, police, and other rescue workers came through. They looked tired. They looked numb. They were grateful for a place for a rest. The people at Seamen's Institute welcomed them as if they were welcoming them into their homes. Truly astonishing. Hospitality in the middle of hell.

Dennis and Mark were going shopping. I needed to get back to my office. My 5:30 was to be a phone session with a hospital chaplain. I had two hours to walk the six or so miles back uptown. Passing through the checkpoints heading uptown was no problem. When I got to the twenties or so, I noticed people were looking at me strangely, and then realized I had a very dusty face mask on the top of my head.

Three sessions. What should have been a "light" day was capped off by one more intense experience, this one rather wonderful. As the Metro-North train pulled into the station at 125th Street on its way back to the comfort of the suburbs, a half dozen firemen got on the train, carrying their equipment, going back to whatever town they came from. And the entire car of passengers burst into applause.

I'm lucky. So far I don't know of anyone who I know who was in this hell. I'm lucky. The comfort of my life is not significantly challenged by these events. I'm lucky. I could go to that hell and then leave. And yet I know I do not even begin to know how much my life may have changed. I was interviewed this afternoon by the communications director of the Diocese of Connecticut for our diocesan paper, and she asked me if I was angry. A little. But not really. Not much. I'm still, like all of us, much too numb.

As I write this a woman is on Channel 5 with a picture of her husband who worked on the 107th floor. She just gave her home phone number if anyone might know anything. How can we not be numb? The alternative is too overwhelming.

Trees, cars, and Facebook

Life is a full-time job. Managing the “stuff” we have makes me want to give it all up, and move to my favorite beach spot, the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge on St. Croix. When I was there, it was just a place on the beach. Now it’s a Refuge. That’s my point.

The day began with Ray’s Tree Service calling to say that they couldn’t take down the 70’ black walnut tree today, because the guys at the electric utility wouldn’t come out in the rain to take down the power lines to the house. Weenies. This call came in as I was on my way home from dropping off the car for an oil change. I didn’t stay for the oil change, because I needed to get home for the tree guys. Oh well.

So I walked back to pick up the car at around 1 PM. I had told them I would be back around noon. At 1 PM they hadn’t done the work yet. I went to lunch. Then I went back, and they still hadn’t done it. I just asked for my keys, and left the dealership. A little pissed. I called our sales guy, and complained to him. He’s coming on Monday to pick up the car to go get it serviced.

Then AT&T tried to bill me $190 for installation charges that were supposed to be for free. I’d like to bill them for the amount of time I spent on the phone trying to fix that little glitch.

Now here comes the fun stuff.

While I was having lunch today, for some reason I thought about a woman who had been a roommate of mine during my senior year of college. Yes, I lived with two women. Best roomies I ever had. As I thought about the one, I thought about her boyfriend, who was also a friend of mine. I hadn’t thought about him in – well, years and years. I mean after all, I haven’t seen either one since I graduated from Rice in 1983.

Then this afternoon, I get this thing on Facebook where he had found me a “wanted to be my friend.” How weird was that. And wonderfully cool.

So I’m trying to explain this twenty-first century phenomena to my Dad. He said, “You want to pay attention to that. Let me know what happens.” And as he completes his words, I get an email from the woman. She wants to be my friend too.

I have to confess that Facebook is kinda cool. I’ve reconnected with a lot of people who were important to me at different times of my life. Of course, there are those who you wish would just go away. But overall, I find the interconnectivity at this time of my life comforting. It’s nice to know that people still want to be my friend.

NYC - Missing it

I’ve been missing New York lately. Don’t get me wrong – I really enjoy being back in St. Louis. Dan and I are carving out a really wonderful life here.

But I was watching some dumb movie on cable late last night as my head throbbed with my pollen-affected sinuses. Okay. I’ll admit it. The movie was “Outrageous Fortune,” that timeless classic with Bette Midler and Shelley Long. But a lot of it was shot in New York. The scenes, the stereotypes of New Yorkers, the whole package made me miss being in Manhattan.

Last night was my first night of class. Usually after class my friend Sharon and I walk to the parking garage together, but she’s in a different class now as our paths become a little more defined in our curriculum and our studies. So I was walking alone to the garage, missing Sharon. And when we came to Laclede Avenue and had to cross over, a young woman said to me as we stood at the crosswalk, “You know, you can never tell if they [the cars on the street] are going to stop for you or not.” I said, “When I was in New York, if a car didn’t stop for me I used to hit the back end of it and always the car had Jersey plates.” She said “Yeah, I always blame bad driving on Illinois drivers, but I don’t think I would do anything like that.” And I said, “Well, here, neither would I, because everyone in the Midwest is either so polite, or they have a .22 under their seat and would pull it out if you touched their car.” She laughed. I laughed. Then she got into her brand new Lexus with the sticker still in the window.

I first arrived in New York in 1984. Well, I’d gone there once as a nine-year-old, but I showed up in April of 1984 to check out graduate school. I fell in love with the city almost instantly. And through the years, I really got to know the town. I lived in Chelsea, in the days when Chelsea was gritty and raw. I worked on the ninth floor of One Rockefeller Plaza, overlooking the ice skating rink. I had friends in Brooklyn and Queens who I visited regularly. My father-in-law grew up on West 231^st Street in the Bronx. I guess that leaves Staten Island, which most New Yorkers, including those on Staten Island, think is a part of New Jersey.

My favorite restaurant is still Maryanne’s on 16^th and 8^th. But if there is a special occasion and I’m flush with cash, you can’t beat the tasting menu at Daniel. I used to get my hair “done” in the wig room of the Neil Simon theatre. I commuted for three years through the World Trade Center, taking the PATH to such garden spots in the Garden State like Jersey City and Newark. I’ve been trapped in subways. I’ve survived blackouts (nothing like Times Square without electricity!). I used to walk into Frankie’s on Ninth Avenue, and he would immediately know what I wanted. My version of Cheers was Hudson Place on 36^th @ 3^rd. Of course, when I lived there the Bridge and Tunnel crowd drove me nuts. Then I became a part of the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, and the tourists would make me insane, especially in December. But there is nothing like the Macy’s parade, or the lighting of the Tree in Rockefeller Center, or the haunting tones in the darkness of St. John the Divine at midnight to make you recognize that you are part of a unique landscape.

Certainly, the city has changed dramatically in the last quarter century. Some say it’s all for the best. I’m not so sure. The city lost something with the Guiliani makeover. And then of course there is the Anniversary That Would Not Be Named which is this weekend.

But the city is still such a magnet. I mean, let’s be honest. Does anyone in east bumfuck Idaho really care about where an Islamic community center might be located in Manhattan? Distances and dimensions take on new meaning when you are there. Because of the intimacy of the city (yes, the intimacy), people have to confront not only those who are different, but also their own individual feelings and reactions to those differences constantly. I only remember my own feelings about coming back from a wonderful 10-day trip to Germany, which included a visit to Dachau. The day after I returned I was at work and went to my local deli, and viewed the guy behind the counter differently as I looked at the numbers tattooed on his arm.

So anyway, today I’m missing New York.

I just wanted to post this.

This is something I wrote four years ago. It has a lot of private references in it, but I share it in order to honor an extraordinary woman. My apologies to those who are bored by it. Just know that it is a part of my personal literature, and please receive it as such.

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A SACRED MOMENT

Written on the 12:22 AM New Haven Express out of Grand Central Terminal, Early Tuesday Morning, August 29, 2006.

I witnessed something sacred tonight. I certainly did not plan on the experience, but then when can one plan on partaking in the sacred – the truly sacred when you know you have but one moment to take in what is happening.

The day had started rather roughly. As the vicar of an Episcopal parish, I had to drive the ten miles from my home to Bridgeport, Connecticut to deal with a flooded church basement, the result of too much rain and badly needed drains. Calls to insurance companies and ServPro were the unplanned actions of the morning, causing me to miss my train into Manhattan for the planned lunch, the final “official” meeting with the woman who has been my supervisor for years. An icon of the pastoral counseling/pastoral psychotherapy movement, Margaret Kornfeld is leaving New York. She and her husband Larry are exercising their audacity to move to California, to be near family, and to start something new. Happy for them, I was rather sad for me, and I had this strange sense of standing on a precipice witnessing transition.

So anyway, back to the ServPro people. They can’t come out until tomorrow to make an estimate of the damage caused to my newly renovated church basement. The insurance company of course is not answering its phone. So now that I’ve missed my train into the city, I decide I have to drive, to keep my one o’clock lunch appointment with Margaret, my private one-on-one going away party for her, at a cute French bistro just a couple of blocks away from her office, which, by the way, is at Calvary St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York City. I, by the way, am Vicar of Calvary St. George’s Episcopal Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

I leave Bridgeport at 11:30, knowing that I am cutting it way too close. It is about a 60 mile drive. What I had forgotten was that the US Open and the Mets were both up and running that afternoon, bottlenecking the already overcrowded New England Thruway into Manhattan. So I call Margaret on my cell. No way to make it for lunch by one. That was fine, considering she had miscalculated and had us down for noon. We arrange that I should come by her office though, look through her books, and give her a hug before her 2 o’clock. Great. Best laid plans, yada yada yada. Who’s in denial here?

Traffic gets worse. I exit, go over to Long Island, and am going through the Midtown Tunnel, very close to both of our offices, when my 1999 Saturn goes “thunk.” Hmmm. Then all the lights on the dashboard start blinking red. Something has happened. I pull over at 39^th and Park, pull out the manual, which helpfully says “If this particular light is steady red, do not shut off your vehicle but drive immediately to your nearest Saturn dealer.” Or something like that. Steam, or perhaps smoke, starts coming out from under the hood. I decide to go ahead and turn off the vehicle. Triple-A on the way. I wave good-bye to my car on 39^th Street. And I have called Margaret. No way I can see you this afternoon. She graciously invites me to come by her office after my last appointment, and hers, at 9 PM tonight.

9 PM. No car. I walk to Margaret’s office, giving her what I thought was an appropriate opportunity to say goodbye to the group she was having. I call at 9:10, when I’m outside her door. No answer. I call again at 9:15. She answers and says, “Come on up, but we’re not quite done.” I say no, let’s give it some time, and I walk down the block to a nice wine bar where I have a pinot grigio and watch Andre Agassi play some tennis on the TV on at the bar. Damn US Open. At 9:40 I call again. Larry answers. Says come on up. Up I go, in the antiquated elevators with the doors and the gates and the buttons that scream 1930. 6^th Floor. Party going on. The group. I knock on the door. I walk in. Margaret greets me, introduces me to everyone and to no one, and I go and sit next to Larry on the couch. We talk. He tells me about California, about the move, about all that is happening. All of a sudden I realize that I am witnessing an Event. I’ve been in this office countless times in the last twelve years. It’s now all boxes and such. The rooms (she had two) are still crowded with people. It is truly a group reunion. I feel like an intruder, albeit an invited intruder. Why am I here?

Gradually people leave, saying their goodbyes. The rooms are quieter. Then come the final goodbyes. Then a private moment. I AM the intruder. Margaret. Larry. The memories that come from the sixth floor of this building behind Calvary Church. How many hours. How many years. This has been a sacred place of healing. Like Sedona. Or Taize. People have come here and been transformed. And now, look around, boxes, old books, trash, and two beloved individuals hugging each other, crying, and me, watching, participating, and I’m thinking, time to go.

But no. We want you here they say. Why I ask myself. They talk. They talk about packing. They talk about moving. I sit. I stay quiet. Then it’s time to go. “I want a cheeseburger” Margaret announces. McDonald’s, I think? No, off to the bistro, where she and Larry can have their cheeseburgers (medium rare) and I can have my steak tartar (even more rare). We start to leave the office, and she realizes she has forgotten her keys, and her glasses (Alan Chisholm: remember the umbrella?) Larry and I hold the elevator (not hard to do – just keep the door open) and finally we’re off. But not before Larry looks down the hallway and says “Would you like that?” pointing towards the Solinsky print that I have privately admired for years. Would I? Ohmygod! Just that afternoon I had been looking at a place on a wall in my office that needed something. Ohmygod! The Solinsky print with the lavender window. Yes I say. Yes.

I know that there have been many scholarly articles written about the relationship between supervisor and student/supervisee. The article, which may be out there but may have escaped my unacademic pursuits, is the one where we address the profound mutual relationship that is created and the space in which that happens. For more than a decade I have almost literally sat at Margaret’s feet, as I have at others previously, and absorbed her experience and her wisdom. She has taught me through her intellect, as well as through her kindness. We have not always agreed, but we have always had respect. She has understood the unique nature of my pastoral ministry, a combination of pastoral psychotherapy and a more traditional parochial setting, and helped me to understand how to maintain boundaries even as you break them, prayerfully in appropriate ways. As a supervisor, she has modeled how to be non-judgmental, and how to be firm. With Larry, she has been a friend to myself and my partner, even as we maintain a professional relationship (she charges for the professional hours, not the personal ones.) She truly has helped me to understand what the word “pastoral” means in all of its contexts. And for that I am ever grateful.

In my perception, she also helped break open AAPC to invite in the spiritual dimension that is ever present in our lives. I speak out of line here, because I don’t have the full historical perspective, but since I joined the Executive Committee of the Eastern Region in 1994, my thoughts have been that as AAPC presidents Margaret (and Han van der Blink before) invited us to reconnect with whatever that dimension is that we consider transcendental. I’m an Episcopalian, so I have to call that God and Jesus Christ and on certain occasions the Holy Spirit. But what a gift to give to us to allow us to talk about the Spiritual as well as the Psychological. In the Eastern Region, I watched as the topics of our conferences became more integrated and less compartmentalized.

Dear Margaret and Larry: AAPC, and the Eastern Region in particular, have so much to be thankful for in your presence in our midst during the past forty or so years. Larry, the New York theater scene has been shaped by your talent. Margaret, you have helped create the professional ethos of pastoral counseling. Together, you have touched so many lives, and transformed so many people. As you join your daughter Sarah, her husband Scott, and your grandchild, know that you will be missed by us, but we will champion your new endeavors on the left coast.

I have little pride. I took the Solinsky print. We went to dinner. I had my steak tartar. My car may well be in a chop shop right now, but I don’t care. I was there when the door was shut on decades of healing ministry by this tremendous person in this particular place. The ministry goes on. California knows not what to expect. But what an honor, what a privilege it was for me tonight to be in that space, opposite Gramercy Park, New York City, Buzzer #6, and shed a tear as I, mere person that I am, was asked to turn off the lights.

1:20 AM. The next stop is mine. Thank you for tolerating my ramblings. But thank you more to Margaret and Larry for the love and devotion you have given to me and to all of us as you, quite literally, have created a community of people.

Oh yes. Next time, dinner is on you. I’ve got a damn car to track down.

Highway O

That’s where Dad grew up. On the ridge. The road eventually was named “Highway O.” That’s not “0” as in “zero,” but “O” as in “Oprah.” I don’t know why Missouri has highways named with letters but it does. My mom grew up on “ZZ”. I suppose there are worse things than Highway “O”.

Anyway. Mom died. We were all surprised, I think. That’s because we were all in denial. I mean, the woman couldn’t lift a five pound bag of sugar. I cleaned her stove one day and she looked at me and said “How did you get all that grease off?” I had basically just wiped it down. But my skinny arms were so much stronger than hers.

So she died rather unexpectedly. I was the one who called 911 to get her to the hospital. Two nights before I had called to check up on Mom and Dad – Dan and I were renting an apartment in University City at the time – and she told me that she was getting ready to move all the living room furniture to prepare for the carpet cleaners who were coming the next morning. Since changing a light bulb seemed to be a challenge for her at this point I immediately went by the house and moved all the furniture for them. The next morning, while the carpets were being cleaned, I took her to the doctor and found out for the first time that her heart was on the fritz as well. When we checked in the nurse weighed her. This was December. She had on a heavy coat and a sweater, and still clocked in at 85 pounds. The doctor came in and looked at me and his first words to me – I’ve not seen the man in over thirty years – were “Are you feeding her?” to which I responded “I try.” And then my favorite memory of that visit was when he turned to her after she had an electrocardiogram and said “You are a decrepit old woman.” If she used such language, she would have told him to fuck off. They had an understanding.

So that night I stayed in the house. It was my first night staying there on a permanent basis, but I didn’t know it at the time. Dan came over, and we slept in my old room on a mattress on the floor – a twin bed mattress for the two of us. Correction: add the dog. The three of us. I spent the better part of the next day trying to get her in to see a cardiologist. I should have been getting an appointment for myself at the chiropractor. Anyway, she went down for a nap, and got out of bed four hours later. She looked like hell. She was confused. She was rambling. I thought she was having a stroke or something. She seemed to be functioning though on some level, so I suggested to her that we go to the hospital. She said okay. Big, big warning sign. For her to admit that she needed to go get some medical help was anathema to the person she prided herself on being. So she was packing a bag to go to the hospital, but still confused. I mean who takes a sewing kit to the hospital? I was with her when she took off her wedding ring before leaving, for safekeeping. She looked very confused. I made her sit down, grab my hands and squeeze them, and I said things like “Count from 10 to 1 backwards” and “Who’s the president?” I couldn’t understand her. Spittle started coming out of her mouth. I called 911.

Craziness. Dan showed up. Dan agreed that she was having a stroke. Then the paramedics arrived. EMT’s were firing questions at us. My father was standing there, with his cane, watching the whole thing. My car was out in front of the house along with a fire truck, an ambulance, and a police car. The EMT said I should go ahead and go to the hospital while they got her stabilized in the ambulance. He said I’d beat them there because they’d probably take it easy. Okay I said.

A few minutes later I’m on my way to the hospital, stopped at a red light, and I hear the siren. I look in my rearview mirror. Webster Groves does not have a plethora of ambulances, so when this one blew by me with the town logo on its side, I knew it was her, and I just said, over and over again, “What the fuck?” I turned on my own flashers and said cops be damned.

The ER doctors also seemed to think stroke, though it ended up probably being a TIA, one of those mini-strokes which leaves no indication that it ever happened. Or maybe she wasn’t getting any oxygen. Who knows what they knew but weren’t telling me. What they did tell me was that if I had any siblings I should contact them. “I have one sister in DC. Should she come out here?” “If she were my sister,” said the doctor, “I’d get her here.” What the fuck.

Mom lasted ten days, most of which she spent in a medicated coma in ICU while being intubated, thanks to the residents who asked her if she would want a “breathing tube.” They meant invasive tubes down the throat. I would have known that. But she did not. Had I been there, I would have said, “Mom, they mean hooking you up to a machine with a breathing tube down your throat.” But I wasn’t there. And she agreed that she wanted a “breathing tube.” To my own last breath I will swear that she would have thought they meant those little plastic tubes hooked up to oxygen tanks you see courageous people with when they go to the grocery store. And that was definitely not what they meant.

Angela did come out for the weekend. Then she flew back to DC, and then drove out on a long-planned holiday trip the following weekend. She arrived the following Sunday night after driving with her two girls and a dog from Maryland, and almost immediately I took her to the hospital, where Mom was in the ICU. It hadn’t really occurred to me that Angela had never been in an intensive care unit. As an Episcopal priest and some-time hospital chaplain, I had been in them countless times. Plus I had spent the week visiting Mom two or three times a day while she was there, unconscious. My mom, not me.

Angela has her own story to tell, but I have to say I felt really badly for her that night. The previous weekend Mom wasn’t in good shape, but she was able to talk, not hooked up to all these horrific machines and monitors, and in a private room which didn’t feel so scary.

The next day Angela and I went back to have “the meeting” with the doctors. While we were pretty sure what the outcome of the meeting was going to be, the doctor cinched it all when he said “If it were my mother, I’d remove life support.” So we said yes. Mom surprised us all and died twenty minutes later with Angela and me standing by her bedside. Typical Mom. She wasn’t about to let her kids decide anything for her.

So anyway, back to Highway O. Lulu Hasenjaeger grew up on Highway O, just down the road from my dad’s family farm. Don’t you love that name? It’s not an uncommon name around that area, but seriously, in German it means “bunny hunter.” Don’t believe me? Go to Google’s translator and type in “hasenjaeger” in the German to English translator. It comes up “bunny hunter.”

So Lulu Bunny Hunter is an old friend of the family. Her parents and my grandparents knew each other well. She’s on the Cemetery Board for St. Paul’s Cemetery where everyone is to be buried. Mom, Dad, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents. They’re all there. Also a lot of Hasenjaegers as it turns out.

Dad grew up on Highway O, on a farm about three miles north of Marthasville. He’s written a lot about that, as have his brothers. They wrote a book they did. “Alex and Clara’s Boys” they called it. It talks about their lives on the farm, in the war, and what they’ve done since. A big theme throughout the book, besides the farm and the war, is cars. There’s even a picture of the Volvo my parents had for twenty years, along with their dog. These are important themes in understanding the Nissing boys.

I’m sure I’ll come back to these themes from time to time. For now, suffice it to say that Highway O is a spiritual home for me. I believe it was for my mother as well. I know it is for my father. His one-room school house is still there. Lulu has moved into town, but not far. Other families still own property in the area. My great-grandparents settled there. The house were my grandmother was born still stands. Highway O. It’s like a part of my DNA. It is part of the fabric of who I am.

Labor Day Weekend and Patton

Labor Day weekend. The traditional, if not actual, end of summer. No white pants on Tuesday.

Sometimes I wonder why we don’t change our calendar to make September 1 the New Year. I mean, if we are going to arbitrarily have a date to roll over the number of years that have passed, why not do that and have it be in synch with all the things that happen around this time of year? Vacations are over. People of all ages (myself included) are going back to school.

Here is another place in which I think the Jewish religion has it right. I mean, Rosh Hashanah will be at the end of this week as Jews world wide begin their year of 5771. It just fits better.

I’m focused on new things right now. New classes (Econ and Management – yoohoo!). A potential new business opportunity. What can I do with the yard, because I have to plan if I’m going to plant bulbs, trees, etc. New paint for the dormer windows. A new look for the kitchen (got rid of the curtains which were literally rotting). So much about the season of Autumn, if you will, is about things coming to an end. In the northern hemisphere of this great planet of ours, things are beginning to die. Leaves are starting to come down. The evenings are cooler. The weeds aren’t growing as fast. The acorns are falling off the oak trees so that the squirrels can do with them whatever they do with them. Maybe my new year thing is more appropriate for the southern half of the world. Of course, that’s also where so much growth is right now – economically, in population, etc., etc.

On a totally different topic – Dad tonight cracked me up. One of the fun things right now is being an adult with him, not just being his son. One of our tasks is to try to help find things that he can enjoy. With the addition of the proverbial big screen TV in the house, and Netflix streaming on-line, we can watch an entire repertoire of movies that normally we wouldn’t have access to. The other night it was “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Somehow he managed to stay awake through the whole thing.

Dad is a WWII vet. Barely. He enlisted in the Navy early in 1945 so that he wouldn’t be drafted on his 18^th birthday. His dad had to sign him in. In July of that year, shortly after that milestone birthday celebration, he was shipped off to Great Lakes Naval Base for basic training. He saw action in places like Galveston and the US Virgin Islands. He did spend years in the Reserve, but was never called up for Korea or any other “action.” Thank God.

His older brothers however saw their own share of stuff. Dad was the youngest of five. Number one died in an industrial accident in 1937. Number four was in the Pacific and actually saw the atomic tests on Bikini Atoll. Number three was a fighter pilot in the Navy in the Pacific. And then number two.

Who essentially was number one after 1937. He was in the US Army – more specifically Patton’s army. He was not in the initial wave that went ashore at Normandy, but came in right afterwards. Legend has it that he and my grandmother’s cousin were on opposite sides of the river in the same battle at some point. There are lots of stories which have been shared, and many more which I’m sure remained private and went to the grave with all these guys. Dad is the last one.

So tonight, we downloaded and watched the first half of “Patton.” George C. Scott. None of us had ever seen it. It is a classic, and quite an amazing flick. About an hour into it, as something was happening in the movie, Dad clears his throat and issues the following pronouncement: “Fred said that when he was with Patton, they had blown up a bridge going over the Rhine. And Patton went out on the bridge, pulled out his dick, and pissed into the Rhine River.”

For tonight, I have nothing more to say, except that I never expected to hear my dad say anything like that.

The Piano

So I sat down at the piano tonight. I’m not sure what possessed me. But there it was, and I was there, and we just connected.

The “piano” is a baby grand that has been around for fifty years or so. It is signed by some famous Metropolitan Opera star – I found the info on that in some obsessive inventory of household items my mother made in the mid sixties. It’s a Baldwin, not a bad brand. She kept it tuned, although the finish on it is a bit rough in spots. It hasn’t really been played in years, and it beckons to reach its potential as an instrument.

I started learning how to play piano when I was about three years old. Mom would put me on her lap as she taught students. My first public performance – that I remember – was when I was about five years of age. I performed at the monthly meeting of the Marthasville Chapter of the Missouri Farmers Association. I even got my name in the Marthasville Record, my first press review. I don’t remember what I played. I do remember being kind of anxious, and I remember my grandmother feeling very proud to have her grandson crank out the evening’s musical entertainment. Ahhh, those good ol’ MFA meetings.

Mom and I didn’t get along well enough for her to be my piano teacher. She was smart enough to realize that. So she signed me up for lessons with the wife of the associate pastor at church. Patty Fitz. I took lessons from her for several years, until my parents had a kind of falling out with the church, and I think the Fitz’s did as well. We moved, they moved, and that landed me once a week in Mrs. Broesel’s living room.

Mrs. Broesel had two baby grand pianos. I could ride my bike to her house for my lessons. I can remember that early on, somehow, and in some way, I broke the middle finger of my left hand. A piano recital was coming up, and I was to play that all-time classic, “Für Elise.” Mrs. Broesel and I worked it out so that she played the left hand part, and I played the right hand part. Weird, but it worked.

What else was weird was that Mrs. Broesel was essentially deaf. Talented, but hard-of-hearing. That’s what we called it in those days – deaf or hard-of-hearing. It made for some interesting lessons.

But I continued to move forward. When I was 12, at her annual piano recital, both pianos were used as I played the Haydn Concerto in D Major on one piano with my mother playing the accompanying part on the other. Mrs. Broesel’s other students were struggling with things like Für Elise. I did all three movements of the concerto from memory.

And then, something happened. High school perhaps. The seventies perhaps. Not quite sure what. But the following year, my natural talent for the ivories found its way into performing a medley of songs from Jesus Christ Superstar. Instead of the lifting melodies and rhythms of Beethoven’s inventions or other classical works, I was banging out “I don’t know how to love him” (please refrain from the obvious irony). Mrs. Broesel was clearly disappointed. It wasn’t long after I decided I was done with the piano. More to the point, I was done with Mrs. Broesel.

My senior year of high school I played in the Jazz Band. In college I took lessons one year, and knocked off Rachmaninoff in an amazing way.

Since then, not so much.

Tonight, there was a thunderstorm. Nothing drastic or immediate, but lightning in the distance, and the rolling thunder loud enough to make the dog bark to protect us against the wiles of Mother Nature. I sat down at the piano, and I started to just play. I didn’t even look at the keys. I just started banging out some notes. When the lightning flashed, I would go heavy on the left hand, creating a theme reminiscent of the thunder. As the rain began, my fingers ran over the higher notes simulating rainfall. I only played about five minutes. It was a creation that will never be heard again. Magical. Whimsical. Dare I say Spiritual.

And then it was over.

When I was done, I wanted to throw open the lid on the baby grand and just continue to play. My style is not particularly elegant, and my melodies are not particularly enticing. But it was fun.

And somehow, somewhere, deep down, that’s what I believe music should be. Fun.

Wednesday nights

It’s Wednesday night. Some people call that the middle of the week, but these are people that have those pesky things called real jobs, kids that go to real schools, and the lucky folk that actually go out and do things on weekends.

For me, Wednesday night has little to do with being halfway through the week. More importantly, it is Milk Night. The night that the truck pulls up out in front of the house and the man gets out with five half-gallon glass bottles of fresh 2% milk, and other goodies which I might order. Last week I got a loaf of banana bread. Yum.

There is some history here. I don’t know when my mom first starting getting milk delivered. When I was a kid, the milk came from Bailey’s Farm Dairy. I think they delivered twice a week back then. I remember once when there was actually cream at the top of the bottle. It was almost like having a refrigerated pasteurized cow in our back yard.

But through the years, Bailey’s got bought out. Now the milk comes from Oberweis. That’s German for Oberweis. And they aren’t really local anymore. I don’t know where the milk comes from. I do know that Oberweis has a store out on Manchester at Woodlawn in Kirkwood. I haven’t been in there, but my friend Susie and I get together next door occasionally at the Eleven Mile House for lunch. They specialize in a luncheon menu which must be sponsored by the makers of Lipitor. I also know that I pay the Oberweis bill and send it to an address in North Aurora, Illinois on Ice Cream Drive. Cute.

But back to the milk. It’s always been delivered in this household. They used to leave it in a metal box on the porch, with a big block of ice in the summer to keep it cool, and lined with newspaper in the winter to keep it from freezing. One time, years ago, the first time I believe Dan stayed here at Shangri-La, the milkman actually just walked into the house around 8:30 AM and put the bottles in the fridge. Dan remembers he had red hair. He also remembers other things about how he felt, but I try to keep this blog family-friendly.

Now, Oberweis leaves the milk, sans ice, in a customized igloo cooler on the front porch, which for some reason allows rain water to get in and has to be drained on a regular basis.

Since it is summer time, the milk could really use the ice, because they deliver around 2 AM and by morning, in the St. Louis heat, the milk is lukewarm at best. So I stay up on Wednesday nights to bring in the milk. Last week I got to meet the milk man, because he arrived as I went out to the porch to see if it had been delivered yet. He was very kind. As kind as a delivery man can be at 2 AM. Gave me the plastic milk crate. That meant we had a milk crate in the way all week as well. I’m giving it back tonight, along with the empties.

One more milk story. I’ve shared this with others, so it’s nothing particularly private. And it is a great memory.

Last December, Mom went into the hospital by ambulance on a Thursday night. Angela flew out from DC the following morning for the weekend, and had a return flight to BWI Sunday evening. Mom was not yet, at that point, in ICU, although she was connected to a machine to help her breathe. I was at the hospital visiting Mom, and waiting for Angela to arrive for her last visit before she caught her plane. The nurses had removed the breathing machine from Mom to allow them to give her some medication orally. I requested that they leave the machine off until Angela had a chance to visit, so that they could have a conversation without the interference of the apparatus that was a part of the machine.

The nurses were very helpful and understanding, but they also said that one of the medications they had given Mom was a sedative. So Mom was conscious, but very sleepy. Angela arrived, and we had a good visit – the three of us. And as Mom was drifting off to sleep, she said, quietly, “I think I have to make a change.” Now, I can’t speak for my sister, but my mind immediately went to the concept that Mom was finally deciding that after fifty-five years of smoking, she should quit. But I wasn’t sure. So I said, “Whaddya say Mom?” “I have to make a change.” Angela and I exchanged glances. Leaning over her so we could hear, I asked “What do you need to change, Mom?” “I need to change the milk order for Wednesday night.” Her last words to us before she fell asleep. Her last words to us. Period.

I stay up until 2 AM to get the milk to remember my Mom.

Flora

I’ve always imagined myself as something of a gardener. I could see myself outside a Bavarian cottage, geraniums hanging from the windows, working on informal but well-planned landscaping. The problem is that anyone that knows me has been quite clear that I am not, despite my wildest dreams, a person who should be intimately involved with plants. The plants unfortunately usually agree. And yet I continue to persevere in my creative horticultural pursuits. Perhaps that should be “crazy” horticultural pursuits.

One of the things that attracted my mother to the house on Oakwood Avenue way back in 1970 was that the landscaping was just that – informal but well-planned. Sometime in the fifties the previous owners of this particular home laid out the garden attempting some kind of formal Japanese design with bricks. There were flowering magnolia trees, euonymus ivy, a small fountain maid of cast iron with the figure of a young girl and a frog spitting water at her. Brick walls separated the various parts of the yard helping to create level space suitable for playing croquet. Two lovely bridges spanned a burbling creek. There were two large gingko trees out front, along with several yews which served as foundation plants. Holly trees adorned the corners of the house, along with a couple of spruce. A majestic oak towered over it all along the street in the front, casting its shadow down upon the brick-lined flower beds filled with iris, peonies, and other perennials.

Sadly, the man that my parents bought the house from had been widowed for several years. While the house is not huge, especially by neighborhood standards, it was far too much for a retired gentleman to maintain. Year after year, the trees grew a little more, without any pruning. The yew bushes became bigger and bigger. The euonymus gradually extended its roots through the ground, taking over more of the formerly manicured lawns.

After five years or so of neglect leading up to the time my parents purchased this memory of paradise, things were kind of a mess. Although my parents entered into a contract on the house in August, we didn’t move in until October 27. The plants of summer were at best dwindling, the leaves thick with color falling on the ground. It was not without its own charm.

The first thing we noticed was the smell. There was this rather strong odor coming from the front yard, not unlike a dysfunctional septic tank or a dog with a digestive problem. The smell was strong. Someone ventured to go outside to investigate, and discovered that in fact, the gingkos were somewhat unusual. They were both of the female variety of that species. And all one had to do at that time of year was look a couple of hundred feet to the northeast to see another bright, golden tree, also a gingko, this one a male.

Now this bigamous male gingko across the street in the Muckerman’s yard had evidently impregnated both of the females in ours – with some abundance. They bore forth fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. Tons o’ fruit. Wheelbarrows of little purplish squishy seeds that when properly stepped upon made one instinctively reach for the Charmin. Thousands of these grape-sized stink bombs filled the front yard. Friends of mine would make their parents roll up the windows on their cars when they drove by, so they said. Why their windows were down in November is still a mystery. People would come to visit us in our new home, and they would be seen running down the street, hands over their faces, gagging.

I don’t know what year my parents finally had these trees taken down. It wasn’t soon enough. I spent too many falls shoveling – not raking, but shoveling these smelly things into a wheelbarrow and hauling them into a pile in the backyard because they were too heavy to leave for the leaf-sucking vacuum machines that would go by each week during the fall months. And of course, in the pile that I created each year, new ginkgos were born.

Meanwhile, my mother was busy with her graph paper. Remember graph paper? We used it to draw things on. My mom was using it to plan her yard. She plotted out the house and the property lines. She took the existing beds with their bricks lining them at forty-five degree angles and drew in what she wanted to plant and when. I would use the mower to try and trim the beds as best I could.

But each fall would come and go and bulbs bought would be left unplanted. Spring would arrive and small patches of dirt would be turned over with a small hand tool. Occasionally something would actually be planted. It might just have been hanging baskets bought at the store. Or perhaps some herbs. Impatiens usually adorned the flower box around the back porch. But the yard continued to get more and more out of control. Mom couldn’t really handle any of the heavy stuff. Dad was essentially working two full-time jobs and getting his Ph.D. I would mow the grass and keep the ivy at bay, but even then it was obviously a losing battle. Each year it would seem to take over a bit more.

I graduated from high school in 1978 and left to go off to school in Houston. I didn’t ever really do much about the yard after that. Neither did they. Trees grew where trees shouldn’t have been. Bushes became, well, bushier. Honeysuckles got way out of control. And always, always there was the ivy. Let us all just pause and give thanks that the gingkos were gone.

So the slightly out-of-control yard in 1970 became even more so by 1980. And the years went by. And by. And by. Bridges rotted and fell down. Chain-link fences lost their linkability. The neighbors homes gradually disappeared from view. It became more and more difficult to leave the driveway and pull into the street safely. The yard was no longer landscaped, unless someone considers Jurassic Park to be ready for the Garden Tour.

So it becomes 2009 and I’ve moved back to St. Louis. I’m not living at home yet, but I am there often enough that I see the condition of the property (hard to call it a yard or a garden) and I know something has to be done. What to do first, I ask myself. The ivy, I answer. So onto the John Deere and off we go, trimming back all that damn euonymus. A few inches on each pass. A little here, a little there. Gradually, what had turned into ground cover that extended close to twenty feet out from the house was trimmed back to a mere three feet. Of course, then there were the roots, and all that gunky dirt. Turns out that was very fertile ground for grass seed. So I continued to throw fescue as I tried to rescue that corner of the yard. Feel free to laugh at my rhyme.

It actually worked pretty damn well. A year later it is a nice lawn, thick and green. A little bumpy. Croquet would not be a good idea. But from the street it looks pretty good.

Now this is a bad thing, because it gives me confidence to keep trying to work at it. So my frustrated green thumb is trying to come out.

Back in Connecticut, we had a Wally. Everyone should have a Wally. We own a two-family house. Wally is our tenant. He loves working in the garden. I think secretly he loves paying people to work in the garden even more. But in any case, it was clear that Wally is definitely in the “Doug doesn’t know how to do squat when it comes to plants” club. He would water the plants on our deck. More than that, he transformed our grand Connecticut acreage. This magnificent New England estate had property that would have been the envy of any of the founding fathers, measuring in with a lot size of 50’ x 150’, upon which sat a house and parking for four cars. And what was left, Wally transformed. Not by himself I should say. Michael, the hot hunky landscape architect had come by years before and given us something of a master plan. And we initially followed that plan to the letter, or perhaps I should say to the plant. But Wally would claim all the credit for himself. Our work before he arrived would be “lackluster.”

So when spring came, and I’m living once again on Oakwood, I had this overwhelming fantasy about Michael. Not because he is hot and hunky. Well, not just because of that. But because he is so damn smart and talented when it comes to landscaping. I want to fly him and his posse out here from Connecticut to Missouri to give me the equivalent of a makeover. But I can’t afford that. I could afford this guy Tom, who arrived with his dad and his brother and one other guy. They spent three days doing a slash and burn, destroying much of the potential to restore the harmful greenhouse gasses to their previous levels in the process. Honeysuckle, be gone! they said. Trees growing through power lines be forever banished! they decreed. Yew bushes that are the size of eighteen-wheelers, we’ve got your number. Out you must go.

But the ivy, well. “You can’t do nothin’ ‘bout this damn ivy.”

Wait. Wait and see. John Deere, Kentucky Fescue, and me.