Remembering Records

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I heard a report on the radio about a company that would put all of your CDs on to MP3s, saving you the trouble of lugging all those heavy CDs around when you moved. I guess it is the latest technological “transfer”. When my oldest son was born, we invested in a very state-of-the-art Super 8 mm movie camera. Took lovely 3 minute film strips. Not a couple of years later, videotape cameras came into use. Friends and family took all their old filmstrips and had them reprocessed into videotapes. Now you could watch the family grow up Christmas after Christmas, all on one videotape. I hope that, if you did this, it was on VHS and not Beta! Now all of those old VHS tapes are being copied onto DVDs.

So, this change of media is nothing new; it just happens more rapidly. I started thinking, with the CDs onto MP3s, whether a CD collection was as bulky as a record collection. Surely, not. Obviously the CDs themselves are much smaller than 12-inch LPs; the jewel cases may be a bit thicker than record jackets, but their smaller size must compensate for that. I assume that everyone knows what 12-inch LPs (records) are. Vinyl disks? The things that DJs scratch back and forth with special turntables? Regular turntables – oh yes, I have a very nice Bang and Olufsen Beogram with an arm that goes across the record rather than pivoting. Very pleased with it when I got it a few years before CDs came out. But, then again, I still have records that I can play on it. I don’t, but I could. I’m sure.

So, mostly for the nostalgia of people who are old, I want to point out that LPs, those 12” vinyl disks,  are called “LP” for “long playing”, because they could have as much as 30 minutes of music on each side (but rarely, more often in the low 20s). They were also known as “33s”, because they were designed to play at 33-1/3 rpm, as opposed to their predecessors, 78s, which (you guessed it!) played at 78 rpm. 78s pretty much had one song on a side; not only did they rotate more than twice as fast, the new 33s were 20% bigger (12 vs 10 inches) [note: calculation error. They're actually 44% bigger; like pizzas area of records increases by squaring the radius, so a 12" record has an area of 36π while a 10" only 25π].  and had more closely spaced grooves. They required a different needle (a diamond needle, usually) than did the 78s. Most record players, or “changers”, had a double needle so you could rotate the correct one into place, along with a switch to adjust the speed to 33, 78, or in the middle, 45 rpm. 45s were the 7 inch disks with the big hole in the middle (presumably so you wouldn’t put it on a regular spindle and wreck the record by playing it at 78rpm); they had one song on a side also, but were a lot smaller, lighter and easier to store than 78s. If you didn’t have a 45 spindle, they sold plastic adapters that you could put into the big hole and put it on a regular spindle, but you still had to change the speed. 45s were the records that everybody I knew bought and collected from elementary school up through high school; you could buy a box to carry them around in, to parties at other people’s houses. I bet there are still some in a box at my father’s house.

What I know are at my father’s house are a bunch of 78 rpm albums. Those of you old enough to remember records but not 78s probably never thought about why a record is called an “album”, since it is only one record in a sleeve, but 78s actually came in albums, like a picture album. Because you could get so little music on one disk, if you recorded a symphony or an opera (or even a group of songs by a single artist or group) you had to have a bunch of disks, most commonly 4. So between the two cardboard covers with the information on them were several paper sleeves, each of which had a disk in it. And, to hear the whole album (particularly if it was a symphony or an opera, say) you piled the disks on a long spindle that had an apparatus that would drop down the next disk when one was finished. And when all were done, you turned the stack over to hear the rest. Thus, confusing to me as a child who didn’t much listen to symphonies, side 1 is on the flip side of side 8, side 2 is with side 7, 3 with 6, and 4 with 5.

78 records, while vinyl, were an older fashioned kind, not somewhat flexible like 33s, but rigid and thick. And brittle after a while. At one time when I was, probably, a young teenager, my father decided to get rid of a bunch of old 78s, many of which had cracks, and discovered that they would (pretty much) break when banged on my head. Not too hard, you understand, and good preparation for smashing beer cans on my forehead a few years later! Luckily, he didn’t break them all. Some of the albums most fixed in my brain are still there in the cabinet. They would probably be scratched a reedy and thin (remember these were all monaural, not stereophonic), but they would be great. I know that Josef Marais and the “Songs of the South African Veldt” is still there, as is “Songs of Free Men” by Paul Robeson and another album of songs of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the Americans who fought on the (losing) side of the Spanish Republic against Franco’s fascists, along with the other members of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-38. One disk had a label stuck on it that said, in Spanish “the noises on this recording are due to the electrical interruptions resulting from the bombings”.

We also still have, I am pretty sure, Robeson’s recording of “Ballad for Americans” by John LaTouche and Earl Robinson (and produced by the recently-deceased Norman Corwin), which, according to the Wikipedia entry, “In the 1940 presidential campaign it was played at both the Republican National Convention (by white baritone Ray Middleton) and that of the Communist Party”. (We also have Odetta’s rendition, on both LP and CD). And Burl Ives. And a recording of “La Boheme” featuring Victoria de los Angeles as Mimi and Jussi Björling as Rodolfo, one of my mother’s favorites. And, of course, as I was reminded the other day listening to a talk on the history of the NY Yankees, the Brooklyn Baseball Cantata, by George Kleinsinger, performed by Robert Merrill (available on YouTube as Part 1 and Part 2).

 

And, in case you’re wondering, while I did have a child’s 78-only record player (“Tubby the Tuba” and Tex Ritter cowboy songs), no, I don’t go back as far as wax cylinders or gramophones with conch-shell-shaped speakers. And, to be honest, if saving CDs to MP3s saves weight, think of the weight-saving benefit for 78s!

Tahrir or Tienanmen? "White Shirts" or Brown? Occupy Wall St and the NYC Police

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This is a guest post by Herbert Freeman.

This week has suddenly exploded with opinions from various establishment figures across the political spectrum about a homogenous encampment in the financial district that has existed for about a month and has been an object of scorn and ridicule and physical abuse until now.

NYC Police Commissioner Kelly, instead of evasive defense of the abuses of his “white shirt” police commanders, in the face of the multiple videos, that throw the lie back to his face is now whining about the cost to the department.  Perhaps we should thank him for increasing the pay to his patrolmen and using them to increase the size of the participants four and five-fold.

Mayor Bloomberg, in his normal arrogant deviousness, first deliberately misconstrued the protest as an attack on the ordinary wage earners in the financial sector, rather than the institutions that employ them.  His new attack is that his tax base is being damaged, though the protesters are trying to increase his tax income by having the privileged pay a fair share.  This, at a time when he not only has enlarged the unemployment rolls, but the callous immorality in high places, that the protesters deplore, the concept of “Get Mine First, To Hell With the Rest,” has slopped over into several areas of his own city administrations.

Now the pundits are starting to devaluate the movement, by analyses which tend to show that “they don’t really know what they want.”  This, of course, is most common among those sharp observers, who never saw a housing bubble coming, and denied the possibility of a recession, while it was in full swing, as ordinary market fluctuations.

On the other end of the pendulum, are the psychics, who ponder is this like a left-wing Tea Party reaction?  Are these the same people (or their grandchildren), who protested the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Afghanistan War, celebrating its 10^th birthday with no end in sight?

Perhaps, they say, it’s like the youth and student protests in Tianenem Square, that Occupation there was good because it was a protest in China or like the street protests, also in a square, in Bahrain, that was bad because it jeopardized our oil interests. Maybe like the ones in Syria (that was good, they aren’t our ally), or Tel Aviv on Rothschild Boulevard
(that was bad because they are our ally in destroying Middle East peace).

How about the Arab Spring in Tunisia (good), Cairo (the jury is out), Yemen (bad, we control the oil).  But the real question should be how do we handle peaceful (but sometimes disruptive) dissent in the most advanced democratic nation in the world, with strong constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly?

These demonstrations, which are showing signs of growth in other areas of the United States and Canada,  gave birth in the heart of New York City, the largest and most advanced city in terms of this country’s economy.  We also happen to have the largest police army and prison system.

Is it possible to conceive that in this forward-looking metropolis, the port of call for millions of immigrants from hundreds of ethnicities, seeking liberty, the right to express their opinions, and economic security and even advancement, that the security forces responsible for public safety, would respond, not unlike they did in Syria and Bahrain, though to a lesser extent?  In terms of constitutional violations, and illegal conduct on the part of the government structure, the principle is exactly the same.

There is an additional psychological factor that disturbs me greatly, although I have no training in this field.  The reversal of roles between the foot soldiers and the “white shirt” commanders in handling these confrontations should alert us to many other possible problems for our citizenry.  The deliberate entrapment of demonstators on the bridge to Brooklyn, engineered so as to arrest as many people as possible on insignificant and very possibly false charges, in an effort to stifle the growth of the protest, is disturbing. Disturbing not only for the political content of the decision by our police force, but by the ignorance it shows of their understanding of what its effect would be.

The decision (and it was certainly a decision) to have the “white shirt” commanders be the first to attack the cornered marchers, was an apparent attempt to justify the actions of the original stupid commander who first sprayed four women behind the police nets.  Even if the demonstrators shouted derogatory remarks (possible but not certain) that is still free speech, not a criminal behavior and less still an attack.

But more frightening, was the psychotic attack by the “white shirt” commander swinging his baton with both hands as hard as he could against American young men and women, who may or may not have knocked over a barrier. Just consider that this man has access to .50 caliber machine guns, according to recent conflicting press releases from our mayor and police commissioner.

Would you trust this man, or the other “white shirt” commander who dragged a woman over the police netting to knock her to the ground, and kneel on her while cuffing her in an unnecessarily violent position? Or the one videotaped beating a young man's head against a car bumper? A young man whose "crime" was apparently possession of a professional-grade video camera. Stopping videotaping of their abuses is apparently a very high priority of the police (although in this case, someone else caught it on their camera).

Would you want to trust them in a real civil disobedience event, or a terrorist attack, or even to even to be responsible for raising children? I certainly wouldn’t!  If some of you are thinking that I use the term “white shirt,” very often to imply that there is a similarity between their mind-set and that of other military-style groups in European history, let me make it clear. You are absolutely right!

I attended the rally in Foley Square last Wednesday, and was impressed by a woman who carried a sign saying, “I’m 87 years old, and I’m mad as hell.”  I was so proud of her, and then realized that next month I will be 87 years old and I can be justified in being “as mad as hell.”  I physically cannot camp in “Liberty Park,’ but I intend to visit often, bring food, money, and hope to sit with them, and perhaps learn something.

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Shall we be callous or shall we be people? There is hope.

Charles Blow, who appears every Sunday in the New York Times, is one of my favorite columnists. He is terse and articulate. His column always features a fascinating graphic with data that presents additional insight into his topic. Sometimes his topic is overtly political, as when he recently wrote about the disappointment many, including African-Americans, feel in President Obama. Frequently it is about people, especially poor people, especially children, and the incredible challenges that they face in this land of “everything for the rich and squeeze the most needy”. His colleague, Nicholas Kristof, often writes about the plight of children in the rest of the world; between them, we learn a great deal of about the desperate situation of so many, as in On Top of Famine, Unspeakable Violence, September 25, 2011.

So, on September 24, 2011, it was uplifting to have a column presenting something good happening for these children, It Takes a Village. Blow describes his visit to the Dorothy Day Apartments on Riverside Drive in West Harlem, a “former drug den” converted in 2003 to housing for destitute and homeless families. Most of the adults were drug addicts or are HIV victims or mentally ill or all. He writes about the cheerfulness of the design of the entire building (including the art gallery on the top floor with views of the Hudson River), of the yoga done by “wee little legs that barely have kneecaps” on mats placed in a courtyard that was previously 6 feet deep in garbage.  It has been successful by any measure – no teenage pregnancies, successful graduations from high school and entry into college, as well as done at a cost less that “housing” people in prison, shelters, or mental hospitals.

Blow quotes Lady Bird Johnson saying “Where flowers bloom, so does hope”. I am reminded of the song (taken from a poem by James Oppenheim written in 1911) “Bread and Roses”, “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too!” The poem is associated with the women who struck the textile mills in Lawrence, MA in 1912, and since the name of many projects and organizations, including an “integrated arts” high school in Harlem.  If I am disappointed in anything in Blow’s column, it is that he fails to mention who Dorothy Day was. Day, who died in 1980, co-founded the Catholic Worker movement in 1933, “a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf”. If anyone wonders if Catholicism is focused only on anti-abortion, anti-contraception, and child abuse, or that there are those practicing the precepts contained in the New Testament rather than greed, prejudice, and selfishness, the Catholic Worker Movement is a good place to start. We are very fortunate to have such a center, Shalom House, in my town of Kansas City, KS.

On the same page as Blow’s op-ed is one by Theodore R. Marmor and Jerry L. Mashaw, who are academics rather than columnists. “How do you say ‘Economic Security”?” discusses the situation in the Depression in 1934, and how the government was seen as the vehicle for helping those in need to achieve a dignified life. They talk about how the discussion has changed in the last 50 years. “In 1934, the focus was on people, family security and the risks to family economic well-being that we all share. Today, the people have disappeared. The conversation is now about the federal budget, not about the real economy in which real people live.“  They go on to say that “In 1934, the government was us. We had shared circumstances, shared risks and shared obligations. Today the government is the other — not an institution for the achievement of our common goals, but an alien presence that stands between us and the realization of individual ambitions. Programs of social insurance have become “entitlements,” a word apparently meant to signify not a collectively provided and cherished basis for family-income security, but a sinister threat to our national well-being.”

There were selfish bad guys with lots of money in 1934. But they were unable to control the debate, hard as they tried, with their control of the media (Hearst newspapers, anyone?). Somehow today they do. Occasionally, there is a burst of hope, the mass rallying of regular people to contribute to and work for Barack Obama in 2008, and the dashing of hope as this figure too seems to serve those with the most power. Marmor and Mashaw conclude  “Over the last 50 years we seem to have lost the words — and with them the ideas — to frame our situation appropriately. Can we talk about this? Maybe not.”

I’d like to say “maybe yes”. Maybe we can look at the Dorothy Day Apartments and the Catholic Worker movement and Shalom House and the dozens of groups called “Bread and Roses” and the thousands of organizations and millions of people who really want to make this country and this world a better place for actual people, and have hope. And, if we want to look back for inspiration, let me offer a few passages from FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech of January 6, 1941:

“The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
The enjoyment -- The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living….

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples:
We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it….

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.”

Are we now such a different people that such aspirations are no longer possible? I hope not.

Mr. Becker

Most people have at least one teacher that they remember who had a major influence on their lives. Or we hope so. Experts may differ on what criteria define “good teacher”, but for me and many others Bob Becker, my 6^th grade teacher, was most assuredly one. In those days (1960) there were not that many male elementary school teachers in Brooklyn, but they were not so rare; I had had one in the 5^th grade also. But Mr.Becker was quite special. One of the “male teacher” things he did was coach – and pitch for – our class and intramural softball games (you got “two swings”). But most of the things he did were far from gender-defined.

The most unique part of the curriculum was a daily lecture, called the “Basic Lecture Series”. Throughout the year, he lectured (for, I guess, an hour, or 45 min) on core topics for our education. At least to my memory, they tended to focus on the what I would now call the social sciences: history, economic, politics. I remember a series on different forms of government and another on different economic systems. A whole series of lectures that covered WWII. And so on. And all the students in the class were required to take notes on the lectures and turn them to be graded. Early in the year, he reviewed various styles of note-taking (e.g, numbered, outline, free-style), so that each of us could try out different ways of doing it. The best notes were graded “MN” (master note-taker) or MHR (“most highly recommended); these were the ones we were to borrow to review if we missed a lecture. I cannot imagine how long it took him to grade all these every night. Or,maybe, it was only 3 times a week.

This was not the only area in which our sixth-grade instruction presaged not just high school but college. We had to do 3 term papers (“research papers”) during the year. The topics were up to us to choose, but the style was rigorous. They had to be at least 10 typed pages, contain at least 6 references (listed in a formatted bibliography) and some number of footnotes. We learned footnote style: format, the use of Op. cit.  and Ibid. (Op cit’s, meaning you had previously cited that reference, were ok, but too many Ibid’s – meaning the same as the previous reference – in a row were not.)  We had other projects, where we collaborated with others in the class in small groups. I remember one set of reports was on “countries of the world”, and my group had Eastern Europe. I was Bulgaria (attar of roses!); my friend Mark was Rumania. We were told to read the newspapers, and he oriented us to the style (full sheet or tabloid), politics (Republican or Democratic, liberal or conservative), and the reliability of each of the 7 major NYC dailies of the time (the Times, Herald-Tribune, Daily News, Daily Mirror, Journal-American, World-Telegram, and Post) as well as the general perspectives of each of their major political columnists (Lippmann, Alsop, Krock, Kempton) and their political cartoonists (e.g., Herblock).

Mr. Becker’s interests were catholic (small “c”); he obviously believed in a strong liberal arts education, even for 11 year-olds. (Actually, also for a fair number of 10 year-olds, who had “skipped” 3^rd grade and were in our 5^th and 6^th grade classes. While “skipping” was an old tradition in NYC schools, I learned from my parents, it hadn’t been offered for quite some time, including not to those my age; none of our age cohort had “skipped” 3rd grade. We made up for it in junior high school, though, where many of us were in the “2-Year SP”, another NYC institution, where we did the 3 years of junior high in 2. This option was not available to those who had already skipped a grade.) We regularly had to listen to classical music that he played, after, of course, lecturing to us on the various musical periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern) and what characterized the music of those periods, the style of the composer, and the individual piece. Of course, we were required to write down our reactions to and impressions of the music. Ironically, although obviously his class was one of the “smart” classes, it didn’t include the students who were in the school orchestra, who were in their own class. I believe a few years later he did teach the “orchestra class”; perhaps he lobbied for it.

He also directed our Dramatics Club. During that year, we performed two plays or musicals, or maybe three; I think in the fall I believe we all did Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Ruddigore” (he took us later to see a performance at Brooklyn College, which, we were very clear, did not come up to our standards!). In the Spring I think half of us were in Kaufman and Hart’s “You Can't Take it With You”, while the other half did “The Diary of Anne Frank”. That one brought some feedback from some of the parents, who believed it was, perhaps, too serious and sad for children our age. Remember that it had been scarcely over 15 years since the end of WWII. Most of our father were veterans and were still under 40. And it was a Jewish neighborhood with an overwhelmingly Jewish class, most of whom had had family, nearer or closer, who were victims of the Holocaust. He won enough of them over for it to be performed, and, of course we (the global “we”; I was in the other play) did great. He took us on class trips, both more “traditional” ones to the great museums of NYC (such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art) but also long-distance ones, such as the anticipated annual trip to the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut (change trains in Bridgeport), which, unfortunately, no longer exists.

And, obviously, we read books. We read novels, either assigned or chosen by us (and approved by him), known as “independent reading”. Not the “Dick and Jane” series of graded “readers” which we had mostly had (with the exception of 4^th grade, where I also had a teacher committed to independent reading). And, just as obviously by now, he required us to write book reports on them that were held to a much higher standard that a plot summary and “I liked it”. I am certain that he taught science as well, because it was part of the curriculum, but whether the fact  that I have little memory of that part was because he was less enthusiastic and/or innovative in that area than in others, or because of something about me, I don’t know. (I do remember having to do a report on Francesco Redi, who disproved the theory of spontaneous generation, and who I could only find an article about in the Compton’s Pictured Encylopedia in the Kings Highway Library, not the Brittanica or Colliers; but maybe that was in 7^th grade. I am not sure if the person who didn’t make that Compton’s discovery, and said he turned in a report that went “Francesco Redi was born was he was very young. He died when he was old, and has been dead ever since”, was serious or not, but it still makes a good story!)

He had great loyalty to alumni, and often brought back former students or regaled us with their current achievements. And, when we became alumni, we learned that he did not intend to give up on us. We left elementary school for junior high in the 7^th grade, but he created an “after-school dramatics club” for alumni which met weekly in someone’s basement. That year we performed Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple”. And, unsurprisingly, there were alumni trips to Stratford, which I am sure I went on for several years.

I am not sure how old Mr. Becker was in 1960. Late 20s? Early 30s? I do know that a few years later he took a teaching position at a state college in New Jersey, and got married, and had a baby – at least one, because a number of us, with our parents who had stayed friends with him, journeyed down to see the baby. I also heard quite some time ago that he died, and I know that at the time it seemed as if he must be very young.

I hope all of you had at least one great teacher in school. I am not sure how many had one like Bob Becker.

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Remembering Matt. Meyers though his poetry

Recently, my good friend Matt. Meyers died in New Mexico. Matt. was a very close friend from high school, and President of our Class (James Madison HS Class of 1966). He was a poet, and smart (graduate of Princeton), personable, charming, and a great friend. He will be very much missed by many people.

I recently wrote of Brooklyn Nostalgia, and as a way of remembering Matt. I am posting a poem that he wrote for our class' 20th anniversary in 1986. It captures, I think very well, the memories of 45 years ago as they were experienced 25 years ago.

Thank, you, Matt. We are thinking of you, and remembering you with love.

Twentieth Reunion

Of James Madison High School, Class of 1966

August 1986

We have come a long way

From that fragrant warm day in June

When we graduated from James Madison High School.

A long way from our freckled faced innocence and naivety,

A long way from our making out in any available

Movie theater balcony.

A long way from our exploring coffee houses in The City.

(Listening to early Bob Dylan, and Peter. Paul. and Mary),

A long way from shooting hoops and all night poker games.

(Smoking a pack of cigarettes at a single sitting),

A long way from our puppy-love crushes and embarrassed giggling.

A long way from bowling and ice-cream sodas on The Highway,

A long way from our Senior Singing.

But. we have come so far

That tonight we are back to where we started:

Young again, in Reunion.

How many crushes are being felt tonight?

How many giddy embraces are being renewed?

How many petty grudges are being finally laid to rest?

How many silent "what ifs" are being said?

Tonight we return to Brooklyn

To explore who we were and what we've become;

To marvel at our survival

Of two decades that took us from

Cozy tree lined streets to the carnage of Vietnam,

From the quiet of Bedford A venue

To the rioting in Newark and Detroit,

Our private adolescent distress turned into political protest,

The jubilation of winning Sing, transformed into

The celebration of the Woodstock Nation.

Classmates: We have made it!

Tonight is our assertion that we are learning longevity,

That we have become what our Yearbook inscriptions predicted we'd be;

We have mastered nervous breakdowns, bad breaks, and broken hearts,

Divorces, motorcycle accidents, demotions and false starts,

To take our place as safely ensconced adults;

Contending with mortgages and ulcers,

And a growing inventory of memories.

Some of our children are even college aged!

Their rooms already empty, except for the posters

And trophies and car keys.

"Now I know what our parents suffered through",

We mumble to ourselves in ever increasing frequency,

As we marvel at the unbroken circle

Of our children teaching us about our parents' worries.

We are a vast and powerful network, our Class of '66,

We sing for a living in Los Angles,

Own a business in Rio de Janeiro;

We have Doctorates in psychology, geology, meteorology,

We travel to Hawaii to take Nature photographs,

And England to manufacture woolen pants,

We sell insurance and real-estate and hosiery,

We are home-makers, house-husbands, caterers,

And of course, doctors and lawyers.

Let us also not forget our Classmates

With whom we shall not in body be reunited tonight?

Who of us has died of AIDS?

Or is home alone crying for lack of money or sanity?

Our who died in Vietnam,

Or in a car crash a long time ago on a lonely road in Iowa?

For them, our dear departed ones, let us also be a bit silent tonight.

Tonight we are poised on the poignant fulcrum of Reunion.

The uncertain future faces us with a wistful, beckoning smile,

The past, our common youth, with tearful eyes

Waves and wishes us a gentle "Good-bye".

Lake Fort Scott Diary: Kayaking in the still

Even on a little lake like this one, there can be plenty of noise. The biggest, of course, are the motors on the powerboats and jet skis that speed around the lake, sometimes pulling skiers or tubes, sometimes just speeding around the lake. There are also barking dogs (occasionally mine!) and the motors on the lawnmowers, which people particularly seem to like to use in the mornings, before it gets too hot. I guess for the same reasons I like to go out in the kayak then; in summer my kayak trips are crepuscular, at dawn and dusk, when it is also quieter.

Tonight I went out just before sunset aimed across the wide, bigger part of the lake; cool enough at 7:15pm, with the lake mostly to myself except for one boat going back and forth with a couple alternating skiing and driving. I don’t mind water skiers that much, especially when there is only one. Sure, they make noise and wake just like the boats pulling tubes or the jet skis, but at least the noise and wake are not completely gratuitous. Someone is, at least, using both strength and skill, and that I admire. And this couple, not so young, were quite skilled, each going long distances before, apparently electively, going down. And the boat, while certainly going fast enough, didn’t leave a terrible wake. Fast enough, I guess, but not grossly overpowered, a low boat making waves that the kayak could handle.

But still, as I came toward home with the sun fading behind the trees, it was good to enter the little cove and leave that motor sound and wake behind. The barking dogs from the house on the point were not out, and the only real noise besides me was the increasing volume coming from the cicadas. There was still enough light to see, and I watched the water and the shore for movement, for many animals like to come out at this time of evening, when it is quiet.

There are a lot of things on a lake that can look like a bird or animal, especially along the shore, and in the coves, and in the shallows, and in the waning light. And the fact that the shapes don’t move doesn’t mean they aren’t alive for the animals are often still. There are the always-startling, but over quickly, jumps of fish. And the noses of the turtles sticking up above the water, motionless, for what seems like so long as they fill their lungs with air that I become doubtful and think they might actually be sticks. And then, suddenly, they disappear, sealing off their nostrils and going off to swim underwater.

The log poking up near the edge could be a bird, but on closer inspection it isn’t. The stump just in the woods off the shore is light colored, and shaped so that it might be a coyote or wolf or bobcat – or dog – sitting still.  But it is a stump. I look for the minks, and for the green heron that are often in this cove, but not tonight. The silent sticks and stumps are sticks and stumps.

Except the crooked stick rising out of the vegetation ahead of me – is it another false clue; certainly it isn’t moving. But as the kayak glides a little closer, it rustles and the stick turns 180 degrees. And  then my watch bangs the side of the kayak and up rises the huge shape of a great blue heron, so much bigger in flight as it wheels around the cove and away.

I watch it fly off, and then sit in the cove in the gloaming. The neighbor’s dogs are now out, and bark a bit, but desultorily. Soon it is just my kayak paddle and the cicadas as we head home.

This morning, sun rising, early, almost quiet, as I head south into the no-wake zone away from the water skier (so early), the only life I see on the shore are a pack of vultures on top of a dead tree. They like dead trees, so the foliage doesn’t obstruct their view of – dead animals. Then, below them, in the vegetation at the shore is unmistakably a blue heron. I stop paddling now, careful not to startle it, and then realize that the brown rock just past it on shore is grazing. The young deer raises its head to watch me glide by.

The stillness is broken by the noise and horn of a freight train passing through town a couple of miles away. Maybe it is the distance, but a train seems more natural, a part of the environment, unlike the power boat motors. And now, into the feeder stream, narrower, calmer, and less bright. Coming around a corner I startle a heron on the other side before I see it, and it flies off, across the double image of the trees of the forest and their mirrored reflection in the here-undisturbed glass-like water. Around another bend, there is life on the bank, and for a second my mind registers “big black birds in a group, some red near the top, must be turkey vultures”, and then almost instantly, “no”. They are too big and too ungainly and the red is more on their necks than their heads, and while a couple flap their wings, the really are running away from me up the bank. Not vultures, just turkeys, a flock (or "crop", "dole", "gang", "posse", or "raffle”) of wild turkeys.

Go out where it is still, stay quiet, and keep your eyes open.

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Brooklyn Nostalgia

The web is full of sites where people reminisce about the places they are from, especially when they don’t live there anymore and so can romanticize it a bit. Brooklyn, New York, where I am from, seems to be particularly a focus of such memories. One of them, complete with pictures, can be found at http://www.screanews.us/NewYork/BrooklynOld.htm.

This site has a lot of good pictures, and some very good memories. Of course, most of the text is hallucinatory (few or no one-parent families), often projecting ("this was my life, so I imagine it was that of others'"), and frequently stupid. The "good old days" were not always so good. There is even a book by Otto L. Bettmann called “The Good Old Days – They Were Terrible!” (Random House, 1974), reviewed here nearly 30 years after it was published. Another site compared various "good old days", going back generation by generation showing what seemed better in memory was not really a very good time. The conclusion on that site is that “the good old days” were never a time period but rather when you were a kid. It is not the time -- it is that things seemed simpler, and often better, and we repress the bad memories from -- when we were kids.

That said, our memories are our memories; we accept the things that are better and regret the things that we miss. However, it is fun to look back at our past, and at our youth, the good and the bad. As far as the Brooklyn described on the website above, at least the pictures are good. While the memories range from the 30's to the 60's, they seem to focus largely on the 50's, and there is a report card from Kindergarten (1a) in 1949, so I would guess that the person who put this together is probably in his very late 60s.

Many of these things were still around in my memory, although the prices were up. Subways were 15 cents when I started riding them; for a quarter, the newsstand guy at the Neck Rd station would give you the NY Times and a token in change. Phil Ochs wrote a song in the 60s about the "Daily News" with the lyric "7 little pennies in the newsboy's hand and you ride right along to never-neverland!", and I remember that it was a big deal when it went up from a nickel. There is an early picture of me wearing a Daily News "Strike" body placard, having gone with Uncle Benny (who worked there) on a picket line. And Uncle Benny would bring the Sunday News comics home on Saturday -- magic!

I remember pizza slices at 15 cents also, but the real treat was walking to Roma's Pizzeria on Avenue U just east (but if you had asked me I would have said "north" probably, since in that part of Brooklyn the “East” numbered streets increased from west to east; the numbers of the streets were going UP, so of course it would be north!) of Nostrand Ave to get a WHOLE pizza for dinner. And walk back with it 5 blocks. Toss-up as to whether this beat Brennan and Carr, hot roast beef sandwiches, on the opposite corner. Which I think is still there. (On the map, the area where I lived is the northern part of “Sheepshead Bay”, bleeding into southern part of what is labeled “Midwood”;  the angled street that crosses the border SW to NE is Kings Highway, which is what most people called that area; Avenue U is a few blocks to the south. Often the whole area north of Sheepshead Bay up to nearly Prospect Park was simply referred to as "Flatbush". For another take, see the 1974 movie "The Lords of Flatbush", which featured young Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler, and Perry King!).

I remember the last of the straw-seat subway cars, the oldest on the Franklin Avenue Shuttle which ran for 3 stops and connected the Prospect Park station on the Brighton train (ours; then the Q, now the D) with the Independent train at Franklin Avenue (or so it said on the maps). Mostly I rode the one stop to the Botanic Gardens station in order to walk the long block down Eastern Parkway to the Brooklyn Museum; a couple of times to the second stop, Park Place, where the Brooklyn Children's Museum was (and, I am told, Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, where I was born, and now part of "Interfaith Hospital" having merged with St. John's).

I certainly remember the crowded beaches of Brighton and Coney Island, and Mrs. Stahl's (under the Brighton Beach subway station on Coney Island Ave and Brighton Beach Ave) and Shatzkin's (on the Boardwark in Coney Island around W. 38th St.? The same guys with the paper shopping bags with knishes in one hand were hefting a huge metal cooler on their other shoulder, picking their way among the jam-packed beaches (I can't even describe these -- ENORMOUS beaches, matched in size hardly anywhere in the world, hundreds of yards from boardwalk to ocean -- SOLIDLY packed with people, a couple of inches between their blankets!) shouting "Hot knishes! Cold drinks!"

We did play a little stickball, and more "Catch a fly is up" (later I heard it referred to as "One-o-Cat") in the street, as well as an odd version of baseball at the spot between our house and the Constantinos' where the narrow driveway on our side was home plate and lined up about midway across from the double driveway of the "rich" (read "attached single family, probably costing about $8000) houses across the street, which were 1st and 2nd bases on the corners. Pitcher stood in the middle, no bat but slapped the red rubber ball with your hand. That ball, a "spaldeen" (I understand because they were the discarded cores of Spalding tennis balls that were without hairy covers) were the mainstay of every game we played. In addition to the above, and a little hopscotch or potsy (is there a difference?), we had "two-box" (= "hit the penny”), "3-box" (also called "box baseball"), and "5-box" (a complex game involving bouncing the ball in each box). Also "off the wall" and Chinese handball (why "Chinese"?). And, of course, the mainstay because you could play it alone or with friends: stoop-ball (catch it on one bounce, 5 points; on the fly 10 points; off a “point”, 50 points – it comes at you fast – and off the top step point, 100 points! Or something like that.)

Movies were a quarter for a double-feature, at least on Saturday afternoons (take your sister!). And they were preceded by cartoons. And a nickel bought a candy bar, which went fast. Necco Wafers lasted forever, but had minimal taste. A compromise might be Jujyfruits, Jujubes, or Turkish Taffy, which stuck to your teeth and could be licked out for hours. Maybe that’s why I had so many cavities – or maybe it was because, as a dentist pointed out many years later, that NYC fluoridated its water sometime between the eruption of my “6-year molars” (full of cavities) and my “12-year molars” (very few). I do remember the unanesthetized pain of getting them filled, though!

I never had report cards like the guy on the website (I think he went to Catholic school). First of all, they were not A-F. We had (U)nsatisfactory, (N)eeds improvement, (S)atisfactory, and SO (really S°,  with a superscripted degree mark) that meant superior. I got a lot of S's, some SO's, and scarcely ever better than "N" in my two bete noirs, handwriting and Conduct (sometimes called “self-control”)! It seems to me that in Albany, when I was younger, we got graded in both "Ability" and "Effort". I will allow readers to decide which of these I received lower grades in.

I think those high schools in the pictures are Boys, Brooklyn Tech, and Erasmus Hall. I went to none of them. Bedford Ave was "HS row", being home to (south to north), James Madison (my alma mater, and that of 3 current or recent Senators and a Supreme Court justice, several sports figures, and Carol King – then Klein – and Chris Rock -- ok, this picture is from before my time!), Midwood, and Erasmus. Most of the newer HS (not Boys or Erasmus) were "U-shaped"; Tech was a full rectangle, and so big (8 floors!) on each floor than instead of numbering the rooms like 401-435 (as at Madison), they were numbered by corridor (e.g., 4W20).

As far as Coney Island amusements were concerned, when I was a kid Luna Park was gone, but Steeplechase was still there. I never liked the fast or scary or high rides, although decades later my son Matt managed to get himself really sick by riding (alone) the Cyclone several times. I did like Skee-Ball. And shooting. And another big thing was that there were Tuesday night fireworks in Coney Island all summer long, and we mostly watched from the roof of Grandma's building on E. 22d St. I remember when I first discovered somewhere, with pity, that there were places where there were only fireworks once a summer, on July 4.

And, while the website’s observation that most people in Brooklyn were Italian, Irish or Jewish might not have been completely true, I remember being quite surprised at some point in adolescence when I discovered there were White Protestants (Christians, but not Catholic and, unlike the non-Catholic Christians I knew, were not Black) -- an idea also expressed (obviously not stolen from me, but I had it way before I read it there) by the mayor-loosely-based-on-Ed-Koch in Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities".

The image of Brooklyn in the popular consciousness, and the memories of those who left it, change with the generations. The "Kid from Brooklyn" was a staple of World War II movies, tough, smart-alecky, and ethnic, often with a Jewish or Italian name. And relatively small, certainly smaller than the big Southern farmboy, another stock character. In the 1950s, when TV was new and based mostly in New York, both the writers and characters were often New Yorkers, and particularly Brooklynites. Shows like Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners (Irish working class folks living in an apartment that was sparse by any standard) and The Goldbergs (Jewish, and a little higher level working class) introduced (stereotypical) Brooklyn folks to the rest of the country.  There were a lot of smart kids from Brooklyn, many in important jobs all over the country.

And now Brooklyn is hip. Having transformed the winter hotels and apartments of Brooklyn retirees in Miami’s South Beach in the last 20 years, young “new” (=”often moved from elsewhere”) New Yorkers are filling the places those retirees came from, moving from the exorbitant rents of Manhattan and long-gentrified Park Slope to the slightly-less exorbitant rents of Brooklyn, filling the formerly Hasidic area of Williamsburg and the asbestos-shingled houses of Greenpoint and Red Hook with yuppies, and the leading edge now moving into – Bushwick! Of course, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be!

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