Songs From the Past

    So I downloaded some songs on my playlist entitled, "Old Fogies". This is a playlist on my phone which can also play on the car, of 40's and 50's music from the original artists like Tony Bennettand Frank Sinatra with an occasional guest appearance of some random singer. I put some songs recently on there from the Andrews Sisters. Not really sure why, I guess it just reminds me of the days and nights at 710, with that blue haze in the living room. Ah, but then there is just the one song that gets me every time. And although I sort of downloaded it, I sort of didn't. Because the version I wanted intertwined two songs and iTunes doesn't apparently have it in their "extensive" collection. And I'm bummed because I really, really wanted that song.

    So the upshot is that I downloaded the Picnic theme, but not with Moonglow interwove (interweaven? interwoven?) with it. And on the way to the store today, I played it on the radio/media player in the car. And the song hit me right in the gut, well, maybe the heart. I could picture those myriads of days at the old place suddenly as if I were a teenager again. Listening to the radio in the living room as mom got dinner in the kitchen. Dad rocking in the recliner doing the crosswords or cryptograms or whatever the hell those things were he did all the time. The nostalgia was overwhelming. I don't think of Dad all that often anymore (which sounds awful when I say that out loud). But when he comes to me in memories, it is always with that radio playing. Even in those last days in the front bedroom, it playing those songs. And Picnic and Moonglow were right there in the air around him. The last song we talked about. The last coherent conversation. And even though a lot of time has passed, it suddenly didn't seem so. 

Christmas (again): Dad and the tree

[Following post contributed by Mike, who is experiencing some technical problems]

Well, here's a memory that hits on two fronts: Christmas and Bud's retirement. If you remember we were asked to contribute something to Dad's retirement party from Oxy/Tenneco. This was my contribution:

As would be the case with anyone you have had to encounter for 30 years of your life (in other words – all of it), the stories I could tell about my Dad (a.k.a. John, bud, Budkins, Buddy-Boy, or possibly “Hey You!” to his co-workers) are numerous and frequently humorous. However, just a few come to mind whenever I have to capture an image in my mind of the essential “Bud”.

Bud has always approached anything that he has done with a true craftsman’s sensibility. I was first made aware of this at Christmastime while helping Dad select, erect, alter, and decorate the tree. It was annual gala event to be witnessed by friends and family from miles around. The festivities would start with the trip to buy the tree. All of the kids would be bundled up and loaded into the family car and off to shop we would go. Like every family all the kids wanted to do was run through the trees playing hide-and-seek, tag or other kid-type games. At least that’s the way it was until we each turned 21 or so, that was when you were relieved from tree duty. Anyway, Bud would turn the air blue with commentary on the price and quality of this year’s trees or commands for each of us kids to “Come over here and look at this or don’t come crying to me later”. Not that it really mattered. He knew what he wanted and the hunt wouldn’t stop ‘til he found it.

Bud’s ideal tree has yet to be found. If Christmas trees were whales, Bud’s ideal would be a Blue Whale – only more full. He would usually find a Balsam or Fir about 10-12 feet high and about 6 feet in diameter. Now mind you, our house was pretty standard with 8-foot high ceilings and a 12’ x 16’ living room. But that’s where the craftsmanship really came in. Tailoring this “giant redwood” to a basic House.

We would bring the tree home about two weeks before Christmas and stand it up in the backyard against the wall of the house so that “the branches will drop down properly”. Never mind that the tree has already been standing since Thanksgiving on a stake in a lot. No… a tree’s branches always drop better with one side leaning against the house. Inevitably, when the tree was brought into the house on Christmas Eve Day (heaven forbid it from being brought in even one day early!), a bad spot would be found on the otherwise perfect side to face out from the corner in which it would be placed. There was only one corner to put the tree in our living room and therefore two “sides” of the tree would never be seen. But it always turned out that the side that should face out always had a flaw that the true craftsman could spot in an instant. Sometimes if you squinted your eyes and stared for several minutes, you – with your untrained eye – could make out some vague bald spot in the tree. But the true craftsman knew. He would trek down to “the Shop” and come up with all the special tools carefully set aside just for this annual task. The first thing to do was to take his special Christmas tree saw and lop off the top two to four-and-a-half feet. To the kids this was perfect, because we thought it was like getting a second tree to put upstairs just for us. But no, Bud would always remind us gently that he would need those branches later. Calming reminders, like: “Get the hell away from that, don’t you know I need that for the 'bald spot'”, always soothed us and reminded us of the true spirit of brotherhood at Christmas. Once he had taken about 25% out of the top of the tree, he would begin to carefully carve the bottom for perfect fit in to the tree stand. He would take his special “tree bottom” saw and trim, delicately, away the bottom foot of the tree. He would shake the entire tree, Living Room and house while drawing the blade across the sap-filled trunk. That was how you could tell that it was delicate – the whole neighborhood wouldn’t shake. Next, he would take his craftsman’s pocketknife, whittle away at the base to carefully fit it to the stand, and, at the top for the top ornament. This was usually accompanied by low rumbles and mumbles from deep within his soul that sounded like: “katza ratza G.D. dag-blamed effing mudda…..youuuuu Bitch!”

With these tasks accomplished to his satisfaction, the fine-tuning began. The branches he had trimmed from the base and the 3-foot-plus top would now become the missing pieces to fill in the “Bald Spot”. He would take out his special Christmas tree drill and bits and tap hoses in all the proper spots chanting the same magic incantations as before: “katza ratza G.D. dag-blamed effing mudda…..youuuuu Bitch!”, for each branch that he would locate precisely with only an occasional gouge to the tree, his hands, or the living room floor.

Now the tree was ready to be erected properly. The stand would be hammered on, the tree spun to the correct orientation, and stood up. After modifying the top several more times for the exact fit of the top ornament, the tree would be in place.

Did I forget to mention the lashing to the walls? I guess I did. Because the tree always took up something like a third of the floor space of the room, was wedged between floor and ceiling and the two adjacent walls, the final touch was to anchor the tree to the walls to keep it from springing out into the rest of the room. Here as always, Bud knew that only the finest details would make the difference. He would delve again into “ The Shop” and return with some delicate strand that would be virtually invisible when tied around the tree and anchored to the two walls of the corner. These “delicate strands” were usually something like bright blue bell wire, or 18 gauge stranded wired with red and black diagonal stripes on the insulation(or was it actually 14-2 Romex? Nah….it couldn’t have been…). He would tie one end to the a screw permanently embedded in our plaster walls, take about three passes around the trunk of the tree and with something resembling a small torque wrench, tie the other end to a matching screw in the adjacent wall. This was what I imagined was meant by “high tension wire”. The tree would shake and quiver for several minutes while the delicate strands came to their stretched limit. I was always fearful that I would come down to the Living Room on Christmas morning to find that the wire had snapped and the tree had been launched like out of a catapult, with Santa impaled on the pointed top ornament implanted into the opposite corner wall. Fortunately this never happened but always added that extra bit of anticipation on Christmas morning. It was clear that not only was Bud a craftsman but a natural born structural engineer.

From here we would proceed to decorate but for me this was always my best memory of the tree. For all the trials and tribulations, he had truly managed to craft a better tree than the year before. Never mind that it started out leaner, shorter, scruff-tier, and more expensive than previous years. It truly was a more beautiful, full and inspirational tree.

Christmas

I can't believe in all the posts here, no one--NO ONE--wrote anything about Christmas! C'mon you guys, this was the biggest thing that ever happened to us every year! We toiled, slaved and sweated over the Penny's catalog for all that we wanted. Christmas morning was like we were a branch of Toys R Us before the store even existed. I know John did a beautiful tribute in his "Boy" recollection/collections, but you certainly have more memories than those! What do you remember about Christmas Eve? What was your favorite Christmas morning memory? This could keep us going all month.

family gatherings

Okay, we got together for all kinds of things and based on the most recent gathering, I got to thinking. When we had family gatherings was it only for holidays? Or did we get together to "hang out" at other times? And we almost never got together with the Riverside Simpsons, just for dinner, say. But Mom-mom and Pop-Pop were regulars at the kitchen table, weren't they? Nan used to come for dinner on Sundays, too I think. But all I remember were the Thanksgiving dinners and the Christmas dinners and the backyard Memorial Day (or was it fourth of July) picnics at Medford. An awful lot of memories for me are of us, the four of us with Jim, Doug and sometimes Tom kicking around 710 for no reason except to sit around and talk. But the family get-togethers were all about holidays, right? With an occasional graduation/confirmation thrown in for spice. So the question is: are those memories correct? Or am I forgetting something?

What we got from our parents

Okay, this is not regarding the piles of presents during Christmases past or even the birthdays. I'm thinking of what characteristics, traits, voice-overs, whatever we got from our parents. I think of the way Mike phrases certain things on the phone, which used to make me think of Dad. His timbre of voice as well. It was like I was talking to Dad, only not. I'm thinking of the way, Con can cut to the chase of any rambling conversation the way Dad did, slicing off the the unimportant flotsam and jetsam of whatever we're talking about to get the heart of the matter.

We have all evolved from the way we were (Streisand melody hauntingly lilts in the background), but there are essences of who we were and who our parents were and I'm wondering if anyone else sees these?

The lines are blurring

I was re-reading a bunch of our posts and got to thinking about some of the things John said we started this for: remembering the way a certain person smiled, a story about another. It's been a while since anyone has posted, so I thought I'd try one for size.

I was wondering why it was so hard to remember Nan. I don't remember how she laughed (which I don't think she did very often). I know her voice was sort of thin and reedy. Her well tanned skin was thin, too and very, very wrinkled. I remember one time when she was sitting in the living room, I sat next to her and simply--well--examined her skin and she let me. She had "age spots" or "liver spots" or whatever the term is all over her arms, but her skins seemed so papery thin, I was surprised she didn't bleed more!

I know she didn't get along well with Aunt Mary (I'm thinking they were both kind of strong-willed women). And she liked things done in a certain way--think of the fruit cake making ritual. But I don't remember her interacting with Dad hardly at all. She came over on Sundays I think and had dinner with us, but the rest of the time, unless we were taking her to the airport/or picking her up she's just a shadow of a memory.

There is a story about her I remember hearing both from her and from Mom. She was at church one night and Pastor Milleman brought her home. She realized that she had been locked out of the house! So Pastor Milleman climbed into the dining room window (remember how there was that short landing after a couple of steps before the porch at the front of Uncle Bob's house?) to go through and unlock the door. She always smiled at the memory and said she hoped that the neighbors hadn't seen him climb through the window because what would they think??

Whenever I think about her past, I realize how little I knew of her or her life. Or even Dad's life, except for the "urban legends" stuff he shared.

Mom-mom is woven into my memory and I think my circuitry, but Nan is a mystery I've never solved.

Family, once

Here's the next photo I got from Cindy. It, too, was probably taken about 1968 or so.

This was of course the old kitchen in Delanco, before Dad redid it. I kinda wish the table and chairs were visible but you go with the photo you've got. So to speak. The upper cabinets here appear to be gray but I'm almost certain they were actually turquoise.

The three women at the right are familiar, of course: Mom-Mom, Nan, and Mom (apparently channeling Jeff Goldblum).

In the leftmost position -- the only one looking somewhere other than at the camera -- is Jack's first wife, Diane (née Stiles). I don't remember how she and Jack met, but I do know that she, like Jack and Mom, was a Medford native; she graduated from Lenape High School a year or two after Jack himself. Her Mom & Dad lived in one of the houses on the left side of this stretch of N. Main St. in Medford.

To the best of my recollection, Jack & Diane were married in 1965-66 or so, and separated in 1973. They lived in a small ranch house on the north side of Old Marlton Pike, close to Hartford Road (one of the houses approximately in the center here). Collectively, the four of us have got a lot of Jack & Diane stories, and maybe some day we can recount them here.

Photos from an ever-dimmer past

To say there hasn't been much activity here for a while would be an understatement. And in truth, this post isn't due so much to sudden inspiration as to sudden outside stimulus. To wit: Cindy has apparently discovered the joys of scanning, and (after I reminded her about the blog) has started to trickle some photos my way. Here are a couple she sent me yesterday.

The first is the below, which must have been taken around 1968 or so:

Left to right here:

• Aunt Mary Simpson (Mrs. Uncle Bob)
• Robbie Simpson (Bob & Mary's son, our cousin)
• Nan (Dad's mother)
• Mom
• Uncle Bob (halfway out of the frame, leaning against the doorway at the right)

Mary's maiden name was Yansick. The Yansicks were (are?) a long-time Riverside/Delran family. I remember the following about them:

• For many years, there was a Yansick's service station/automobile (transmission?) repair shop catty-corner from Ott's Tavern, at the intersection of Hartford Road and, um, whatever the road is from Bridgeboro to Moorestown. (Bridgeboro Road, probably.) And how about that, it looks like it's still there (at the corner on the left). It seems to me that the proprietor of the establishment was Mary's brother Walt, but I could be wrong.
• There was a Cathie Yansick in my class at Riverside. Her nickname (for reasons I never grasped, perhaps a good thing) was "Slicky." Here's how she signed my senior yearbook (you should understand that I had a reputation for being sarcastic, hence many people felt the need to be smart-*sses when signing my yearbook):

John,
To the only guy I know who is a real creep, ha ha! Without your help, the yearbook would be better. When I'm driving around in my Vet in a couple of years, I might pick you up. Keep in touch, O.K.
Love,
Slicky

Needless to say, neither she nor I ever kept in touch, so I never got that ride in her Corvette.

• For a few months in the late 1970s, I went with a Debbie Yansick. I vaguely remember that her apartment was in a complex in, uh, Edgewater Park maybe -- somewhere out behind the Super 130 drive-in, whatever that street is called. Cooper Street. (Jeez, Google Maps is great. The Super 130 lot is that strange-looking nest of concentric quarter-circles just right of center.) Dating her creeped me out a little bit at first, frankly, because we were in some sense "cousins." I finally rationalized it because we weren't, yknow, blood cousins.

And that's all I've got about the Yansicks. Anybody else?

Our cousin Robbie -- at least in my memory -- always seemed to be a little troublemaker, and in this photo he does seem to be a bundle of barely restrained mischief. As with Slicky Yansick, I never got to ride someplace in a car of his. For a while, he worked (maybe in the Merchant Marine?) on an oil tanker. His sister, who was about the same age as me (i.e., older than Robbie), was Linda. I know I've got some pix of Linda around here somewhere -- I'll upload them separately if I can find them.

Nan, you may remember, was in this group photo posted way back in 2004. (Look at the man all the way at the right of the picture; that's Ed Simpson, Nan's second husband and our grandfather. Nan is just to the left of him, about even with the bottom of his jacket's lapels.) One of these days I/we are going to have to post one or more separate entries just about Nan.

Not sure what's up with Mom's pose here, listing majorly to port. Maybe she imagined that she could move herself out of the photo's frame if she just leaned far enough over.

As with Nan, we need to put our heads together to come up with a good solid entry for Uncle Bob, Dad's younger brother.

On to the second picture I got from Cindy, in a separate post.