It's Beginning to Look - Faintly - Like Christmas

It’s beginning to look – faintly – like Christmas. Faintly, because in my hometown downtown and throughout most of my neighborhood, people whose hearts are brimming with holiday cheer and environmental responsibility are stringing energy efficient, low-wattage, LED Christmas lights in an attempt to demonstrate both their seasonal spirit and their social conscience.

It wasn’t like that when we were growing up Downriver. About half the warmth we felt during the holiday season was from the love of family and friends; the other half was generated by the Christmas lights that decorated our homes inside and out!

Big bulbs – maybe 10 or 15 watts - and they were bright. So bright that we had to squint when we looked at our Christmas tree, or drove downtown with mom and dad to ooooh and aaaah at the light display. And they were hot. My favorites – Bubble-Lites – were hot enough to, well, boil the stuff inside them that made the bubbles!

Current social standards would label the lights we grew up loving as “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”

Dangerous? Well, a couple generations before we were kids, families were lighting their living room Christmas trees with candles; so, I call our lights a big improvement in home safety.

Irresponsible? OK, really, how much fossil fuel did we actually squander between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day back in the 50s and 60s? Don’t try to tell me that today’s Global Warming crisis began when I was a kid, in Riverview, helping dad string Noma outdoor lights (equipped with “Safety Plug” technology!) through the bushes in front of our house on Hinton.

I know … I have to accept that times have changed. The only place I can find the lights we grew up with is eBay, and maybe the Henry Ford Museum. So, I’ll take my kids downtown one evening this week to uuuuh and aaaah at the light display.

“Uuuuh and aaaah?!”

Yep – I’ll say, “uuuuh, I think they’re lit, kids …” and then “… aaaah, there they are!” when our eyes adjust enough to the darkness to be able to make them out.

This season, may your days be merry and bright!

Bubble-Lites were my favorite - hot enough to boil the stuff inside!

Dad strung Noma outdoor lights in the bushes out front; my job - check the bulbs.

Remembering Jerry and his "Kids"

When you walk through a storm,

Hold your head up high,

And don’t be afraid of the dark.

The Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethon, hosted by Jerry Lewis has been a part of our Labor Days for all our lives – literally. Jerry hosted the first (aired locally in New York) in 1952. In 1966, the event went national and became a part of our culture.

For 19 hours, starting Sunday evening and running through the night, Jerry hosted a cast of singers, comics, actors and some “celebrities” who were pretty much just the previous generation’s Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians; all focused on raising funds for MDA, and reminding viewers to “call the number on your screen.”

I remember dad stopping to watch comedian Jack Carter, who he (for some reason) thought was “… full of real knee-slappers!” Mom always found time to dreamily watch Tony Orlando sing. Dad would grumble that Orlando “needed a haircut” – while ogling Tony’s back-ups, “Dawn,” of course.

My brother and I would sometimes sneak out of bed in the middle of the night (really, early Labor Day morning), quietly slip into the living room and turn on the TV, with the volume low, just to experience the wonder of something actually on TV at that hour. Remember, that was long before 24/7 cable and satellite networks; when after midnight you only found a test pattern, or static.

As kids, MDA was close to our hearts earlier in the summer, too. We’d send away for an MDA “Backyard Carnival Kit” and create a midway full of games built from corrugated cardboard boxes and featuring refreshments like Mrs. Podolack’s chocolate chip cookies and homemade lemonade with not quite enough sugar. Our motivation was somewhat self-centered, though. We really just wanted to be some of the kids invited to appear on the local broadcast, proudly showing the bucket of money we’d raised for “Jerry’s Kids” and being invited by Sir Graves Ghastly to dramatically dump our donation into the fish tank full of cash. Never happened.

Maybe it was a reflection of the economic level of the neighborhood where we grew up in Riverview, but we never raised more than a few bucks, which we just put into an envelope and mailed to the MDA P.O. Box. A few weeks later, we always got a “thank you” note from Jerry Lewis himself, complete with a printed facsimile of his signature.

For us, the Labor Day Telethon wasn’t so much a part of the holiday, as it was a holiday within a holiday. Everything would come to a stop near 6 p.m., when Jerry would call for “… the final total …” I mean everything; grilling, street baseball, even card games on the porch, just stopped. We all collectively held our breath, along with Jerry, waiting for that magical number. And when the digits appeared – six, and sometimes seven, of them; Jerry would sigh and we’d all get a lump in our throats.

Then the strains of that familiar closing melody would begin … mom would shed a few happy tears, dad would say something like “… that man’s a saint,” and we’d watch Jerry take a seat on a stool, center stage and hoarsely sing;

Walk on through the wind,

Walk on through the rain,

Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,

And you’ll never walk alone.

You’ll never walk alone.

Well, times change. This year, the MDA Telethon is a six-hour event, and it’s not even on Labor Day, it runs from 6 p.m. ‘til midnight on Sunday. And Jerry’s not a part of it. I’ve read various reasons – Jerry, in his mid-80s, decided to “retire,” or MDA decided to “go in a different direction.” Ultimately, the reason doesn’t really matter. Fact is another part of our past has, well … passed.

Nonetheless, we’ll still take care of “Jerry’s Kids” (Which they will always be to us, right?); and thanks to the legacy of caring and giving that Jerry provided to our generation, we’ll never walk alone.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” 1945 – Rogers and Hammerstein

I Miss Just Getting Hurt

I miss getting hurt, instead of just hurting all the time. When we were kids, growing up Downriver, getting hurt and “healing up” was a natural, and practically never-ending, cycle. We’d skin our knees and they’d heal. We’d take a tumble from our bikes and the bruises would fade. Even playing sandlot baseball at Memorial Park, or street football (“Car!”) on Hinton, we’d twist an ankle or over-extend a muscle and in a day or two – if not just hours – we’d be as good as new.

Not so now. Seems now, I hurt all the time; and there’s darn little “healing up” that seems to take place anymore. My left shoulder has a permanent twinge, my right hand and wrist are forever numb from repetitive strain, and my right hip is a virtual weather station – sharp pain means rain’s coming, dull pain means, well, that I’m getting old.

One of my favorite Little Golden Books, “Doctor Dan the Bandage Man” (which still sits on my bookshelf), celebrated our ability to recover from those scrapes and bumps.

When Dan cut his finger playing cowboys with his pals in the yard, he ran crying into the house, “Why, that’s nothing to cry over,” Mother said when she saw the bright red spot. “We’ll wash it clean with soap and water, and bandage it up and it will be better than new.” And quick as a wink, it was. Yeah, 50 years ago, that was all of us too.

Over the past 10 days, I’m convinced that I’ve shoveled more snow than I’ve shoveled throughout the rest of my adult life cumulatively. And I have the aches and strains to prove it – and I expect to feel them until they’re replaced by the aches and strains brought on by my first round of spring yard chores.

In the closing pages of “Doctor Dan the Bandage Man,” Daddy is home from work on a Saturday, mowing the lawn, when he cuts his finger. Dan, learning a lesson from Mother, springs to action.

“Let me fix you up,” said Dan. “I know what to do. We’ll wash your finger clean and bandage it up and it will be better than new.”

“You’re a handy fellow to have around,” said Dad. And he shook Dan’s hand. “I have a new name for you. We’ll call you Doctor Dan, the Bandage Man.”

Well, Doctor Dan may have taken care of Dad’s scratch, but what that classic Little Golden Book didn’t warn us about was that Dad’s lower back pain was there to stay.

"Doctor Dan the Bandage Man" is a Little Golden Book, by Helen Gaspard; with illustrations by Corine Malvern. It was published by Simon and Schuster in 1950.