Downriver Diary

It's Beginning to Look - Faintly - Like Christmas

2011-11-22T19:39:00.000-05:00

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

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

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

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

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

Irresponsible? OK, really, how much fossil fuel did weactually squander between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day back in the 50s and60s? Don’t try to tell me that today’s Global Warming crisis began when I was akid, in Riverview, helping dad string Noma outdoor lights (equippedwith “Safety Plug” technology!) through the bushes in front of our house onHinton.

I know … I have to accept that times have changed. The onlyplace I can find the lights we grew up with is eBay, and maybe the Henry Ford Museum. So, I’ll take mykids 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 …” andthen “… aaaah, there they are!” when our eyes adjust enough to the darkness tobe 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"

2011-09-01T21:43:00.000-04:00

When youwalk through a storm,

Hold yourhead up high,

And don’tbe afraid of the dark.

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

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

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

My brotherand 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 TVat 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 anMDA “Backyard Carnival Kit” and create a midway full of games built fromcorrugated cardboard boxes and featuring refreshments like Mrs. Podolack’s chocolatechip cookies and homemade lemonade with not quite enough sugar. Our motivationwas somewhat self-centered, though. We really just wanted to be some of thekids invited to appear on the local broadcast, proudly showing the bucket of moneywe’d raised for “Jerry’s Kids” and being invited by Sir Graves Ghastly to dramaticallydump our donation into the fish tank full of cash. Never happened.

Maybe it wasa reflection of the economic level of the neighborhood where we grew up inRiverview, but we never raised more than a few bucks, which we just put into anenvelope 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 ofhis signature.

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

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

Walk onthrough the wind,

Walk onthrough the rain,

Though yourdreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on,walk on with hope in your heart,

And you’llnever walk alone.

You’llnever walk alone.

Well, timeschange. This year, the MDA Telethon is a six-hour event, and it’s not even onLabor Day, it runs from 6 p.m. ‘til midnight on Sunday. And Jerry’s not a partof 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’treally 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 toour generation, we’ll never walk alone.

“You’llNever Walk Alone,” 1945 – Rogers and Hammerstein

I Miss Just Getting Hurt

2011-02-27T19:13:00.005-05:00

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.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

2010-11-23T22:38:00.006-05:00

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
Everywhere you go,
Take a look in the five-and-ten, glistening once again,
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

– Robert Meredith Willson

My favorite “five and ten” was Woolworth’s. It, like so many familiar places Downriver, used to transform at this time of year into a Christmas wonderland. Cotton snow trimmed the display cases, sometimes accented with sparkly silver dust that clung to our wool mittens much better than it did to the cotton snow. Woolworth’s was where Mom and Dad bought our Christmas staples – spare colored bulbs, replacement bubble lights, and pounds and pounds of lead tinsel to hang on our Christmas tree. It’s amazing that our generation ever amounted to anything, considering the amount of lead we must have absorbed through our fingertips each Yuletide season.

While the transformation of Woolworth’s was dramatic; it was the transformation of the most unlikely places that I remember – and miss – the most.

The National Supermarket was, most of the year, my least favorite destination. After Thanksgiving, however, my pals and I begged to go along with our parents on grocery shopping trips. We wandered along the dairy and frozen food cases, with our necks stretched and contorted as we stared upward in awe at the array of toys by long-gone American toymakers like Deluxe, Topper and Ideal displayed high above us on the supermarket top shelves. Jimmy Jets, Playmobiles, Battlewagons and Secret Sam Spy Cases topped our Christmas lists.

Even Clay’s Sinclair Station reflected a little North Pole décor with its evergreen rope hung in the windows and wound around the sign pole out front, accented by red bows and berries. And, in addition to S&H Green Stamps, Dad used to get a free Christmas ornament with every fill-up between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. I remember driving home, cradling one of those little glass treasures in my palms and thinking such a beautiful piece of artistry must have come directly from Santa’s workshop.

Woolworth’s is a retail history footnote, the only toys in supermarkets now are related to gourmet cooking, and “Holiday Countdown” instant lottery tickets are the most festive item we’ll find at our local gas stations.

A lot has changed about Christmastime Downriver since those magical seasons of our childhoods. But some things – the really important ones – maybe not so much as it seems.

My family and I will be bringing down Christmas decorations from the attic soon, and I know that at the very bottom of a boxed marked “ornaments,” wrapped in tissue paper and an old yellowed sheet of newspaper, is a small, faded glass ornament that I held in my hands on a drive home from Clay’s more than 50 years ago. It long ago lost all its sparkles and its shine, but when I hang it on my tree, it’ll be looking a lot like Christmas – in my home and in my heart.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Fill ‘er Up – with Memories

2010-11-03T19:16:00.004-04:00

I stopped at a local gas station last Saturday morning with my two daughters – the oldest driving, thanks to her newly-issued permit. She slipped from behind the wheel and headed into the gas station/convenience store with her sister – the same one we’ve been going to since they were both in car seats – in search of their usual gas station fare; a bottle of pop, a snack, and maybe a pack of gum for later.

As I watched them go in, and began pumping gas, my memories carried me up the road several miles and back in time several decades – to Clay’s Sinclair Station.

Clay ran the place with his “boys,” and it was a regular stop for my dad and me at least a couple of times a week. I don’t remember Clay’s last name. Don’t know that I ever knew it, really – same for the names of his “boys.” There were two of them, and teamed with their dad, they were like a pit crew to every neighborhood car that stopped to gas-up. That’s what dad always called it. We never “stopped for gas,” or “went to get gas,” we always stopped to “gas-up.”

Before the engine of dad’s ’55 Chevy sputtered to a full stop, one of the boys always had the hood up to check the oil and water; and the other set the pump and washed the windshield. Clay’s job was, my dad always said, to “… chew the fat with the paying customers.” In the few minutes it took the boys to tend to the Chevy, he and dad caught up with all the local sports, shared stories about working for a living, and managed a couple of comments each about “the old ball-and-chain.”

Clay’s wasn’t a place to get snacks or gum; although there was an old Coke machine out front that dispensed those little 7 ounce bottles of pop for a nickel – but only part of the year, because in the winter it was unplugged and emptied, so the pop wouldn’t freeze. And, now that I think about it, you could get gum – but it was from a penny gumball machine put there by the local Rotary Club.

Clay’s was the place you went for gas, oil, and “good used tires,” and “reliable batteries” – as the sign in the window promised. And there were some bonuses, too – S&H Green Stamps and, once in a while, “special edition drinking glasses” – one free with each fill-up of 10 gallons or more.

I was snapped back to the present by the “thunk” of the gas pump stopping and by the voices of my daughters – they brought me a Diet Mountain Dew – urging me to hurry up, so we could get going to where ever it was that was so urgent for them to get that morning.

I hung the nozzle back on the pump, screwed on the gas cap, took the receipt from the slot, and made my way around my car – to the passenger door – as my daughter started the engine.

While it sometimes seems that things have changed so much, it’s really not the case, you know? Clay’s Sinclair Station, and everything about it, may be just a memory from my childhood; but I realized that I was doing exactly what my dad and I did on all those Saturday mornings Downriver for so many years – making little everyday memories that will last a lifetime.

Remember when 'Trick or Treat' MEANT 'Trick or Treat'?

2010-10-27T20:43:00.004-04:00

Halloween isn’t a big deal to my kids. Halloween parties are. Each of my daughters is going to two parties, and they’re hosting one jointly at home.

Heck, back when we were growing up Downriver, in the ‘60s, Halloween WAS a party! A one-night street party that stretched for blocks in every direction – just for us kids. We ruled that night – one of the few we were allowed out past the full illumination of the street lights – dashing from one front door to another, shouting “Trick or Treat!” while trembling adults with bowls of sweets huddled behind closed doors, ready to offer us treats as tribute to escape our dreaded trickery!

Ahhh … and there was trickery for those who failed to provide us treats. Awful, sometimes unimaginable horrors … soap (yes, I said soap!) on screen doors, overturned trash cans – their contents spilled like entrails, and, in the most horrid of cases, eggs on aluminum siding!

Yes, devils we were, when our sugar hunger was not fed!

My kids and their friends make a short, token outing on Halloween night. I guess it’s all they can manage after two nights of partying. They lethargically wander from door to door and they knock – yes, knock – or worse, they ring a doorbell, and only when someone appears at the door do they offer a feeble, half-mumbled “trick or treat” – knowing full well that they’re getting a treat, and the adult at the door knowing full well that the kids are standing there without a single trick up their sleeves to back up their unconvincing ultimatum.

So, friends, when lethargic trick-or-treaters like my kids and their friends show up at your door on Sunday night, toss them a treat; but when you do, remember what it was like for us all those years ago … adrenaline driving us from door to door through the darkness in our Ben Cooper costumes, sweat collecting under our plastic masks, and treat yourself to a few Kit Kat bars.

And, before your sugar buzz subsides, run outside under the cover of darkness and soap that cranky neighbor’s screen door!

Tramps Like Us, Baby We Were Born to … WHAT?!

2010-09-23T20:36:00.005-04:00

Dion and the Belmonts convinced the guys and me that we could grow up to be "Wanderers."

When the guys and I were growing up Downriver back in the 1960s, none of us really had to think about what we were going to do when we grew up. Well, that’s not completely true. Some of us thought about being the next Bart Starr or Rocky Colavito, and one of us thought about being the next Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, but that was dream stuff. Year after year, what we were going to actually do was vaguely shaped by our favorite singers, at each stage of our lives.

As kids, Dion encouraged us to be Wanderers. Hey, what 12 year old guy couldn’t identify with a lifestyle that would let him “… roam from town to town, goin’ through life without a care … with my two fists of iron, and I’m goin’ nowhere …”

Yeah! We wanted to be Wanderers and roam around, around, around, around …

Then, as teens, Bob Seger convinced us that we could be a “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” and his lyrics sounded like they were written with us guys in mind. “Ain’t good lookin’, but ya’ know I ain’t shy, ain’t afraid to look a girl in the eye …”

Well, maybe we couldn’t actually look a girl directly in the eye, but they knew we were lookin’ at ‘em! And it was the chorus that summed up the life we were going to lead anyway, “… Then I got to ramble, ramblin’ man; Lord I got to gamble, gamblin’ man …”

As young men, just beginning to find our place in the world, Bruce Springsteen provided our theme song and the soundtrack to our restless years when he sang, “… Baby this town rips the bones from your back, it’s a death trap, a suicide rap … we gotta’ get out while we’re young, ‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run!”

Turns out, most of us really were born to run. Born to run a stamping press, or a hi-lo, or a cash register, or even a laptop computer; right in that town that threaten to “… rip the bones” from our collective backs. We also were born to give bike riding lessons and help with homework, and say “you’re right dear,” to our spouses – even when we have no idea what we’re wrong about.

So where are Dion and Bob and Bruce now? I guess there’s no commercial appeal for songs about what we’ve actually become! Well, Neven, Joe, Fred, Larry, Mark – all the would-be Wanderers, Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Men – all the Downriver tramps like us – here’s at least one verse we can call our own …

"Baby this life rips the pay from our grasp,
It’s a debt trap, a suicide lap
We gotta’ hang on as long as we can,
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to … pay the mortgage!"

(Take Me) Back to School!

2010-09-05T21:29:00.002-04:00

I wish I was going back to school.

My kids are facing their return to school this week with the same mix of excitement and dread that my friends and I did each September, when we returned to St. Cyprian School in the early 1960s.

I can still relate to the excitement, but after decades in the working world, I look back now and see how misplaced the dread was then – and is now for my kids. St Cyprian, like all the schools Downriver, was full of caring people (in our case, mostly Sisters of the IHM Order) who dedicated their lives to making certain we were successful – in school, and later in life.

My kids – all our kids – are returning to that same sort of environment today. And they’re surrounded by good friends who will share with them the challenges of conquering math and completing homework assignments.

Back in the fall of 1964, I knew that Joe and Neven, Larry, Mark, Johnny, Eric and all the guys had my back in Arithmetic, in Science class, in Religion class and on the playground. It didn’t stay that way in the decades ahead, when we all grew up and many of us went our separate ways. At work, co-workers will abandon you in a heartbeat to save their own positions.

Study hard, finish your work, and get good grades. That was the simple equation for success at St. Cyprian. In the working world, we all learned it’s work hard, do your best, and get laid off because the PAT isn’t sufficient to satisfy the Board of Directors and the shareholders.

Back to school this week? I’d love to be there! Back to work tomorrow? I feel a stomach ache coming on …

When Did Summer Reading Get So BORING?!

2010-08-15T16:13:00.005-04:00

My summer reading is boring! Has been for years, unfortunately.

Titles like "The World is Flat," "Who Moved My Cheese?," and "First Break All The Rules," as well as the latest corporate IT process manuals and HR policy documents, have made up my summer reading list - recommended by senior management, of course - for most of my adult life.

It wasn't always like that, though. Not back in the early 1960s, when my summer reading list was made up of titles from the Riverview Memorial Elementary School Library summer program. The library was just a few blocks walk from my house on Hinton and I was a daily visitor.

I'd like to say that was where I first discovered classics by Faulkner, Hemingway and Henry. But that would be a lie.

My taste ran to titles almost nobody heard of, and probably fewer remember - "Big Mutt," by John H. Reese, and "Utah Lion," by James Ralph Johnson; as well as any "Hardy Boys" adventure, and all six "Power Boys" adventures (bet you don't remember those brothers!).

Summer reading was fun back then. Every cover I opened led me on a new adventure, and every page fueled my imagination. I devoured summer books with the same appetite - and almost the same speed - as Popsicles from the Good Humor man; sometimes getting literary "brain freeze" from the excitement.

I miss that. Somehow all this "meaningful" summer reading I've been doing is, ultimately, meaningless. Enough!

Today, I'm dusting off my copy of "The Call of the Wild," grabbing a Popsicle from the freezer, and heading to the back porch for some good, old-fashioned summer fun!

Cruisin' Down(river) Memory Lane

2010-06-27T17:23:00.007-04:00

Thank you, Chris Matthews!
After reading my Cruisin' Downriver blog, and learning I was disappointed at not seeing a '55 Chevy in the hours I was at the Cruise on Fort St., Chris Matthews kindly sent me some photos of her husband Barry's classic Chevys - including the one above with Barry and her seated in it. Thanks Chris and Barry, for making my cruise season complete and for sharing your memories with me - and now with all our Downriver friends!

Fort St. could have been renamed “Memory Lane” on Saturday, June 26 when thousands of cruisers, and thousands more spectators gathered along miles of Fort St. to watch, and be a part of the 11^th annual “Cruisin’ Downriver.”

I watched from the corner of Longsdorf and Fort, just a few blocks from the house I grew up in on Hinton, standing in front of what used to be Mike’s Barber Shop and across Longsdorf from the bank parking lot where I learned to ride a two-wheeler nearly 50 years ago.

Hundreds of classic cars, bumper to bumper at times, cruised along Fort St. We had a different term for those cars back in late ‘50s and early ‘60s … they were called “traffic.” Today, when they gather, it’s more than just a celebration of “Detroit Iron,” it’s a celebration of a past era, and the people we all were back then.

I watched intently for a 1955 Chevy Bel Air. Any color, but cream-over-turquoise would have been ideal. That’s what my dad, Joe Saad, drove for a good part of my early childhood.

It was the car that we all went to St. Cyprian Church in every Sunday. It was the car that dad and mom drove every week to the National Supermarket. It was the car we sat in at the old Fort George Drive-In, and it was the car we’d take to Bob Jo’s Frozen Custard for a cool treat on hot summer nights.

It was on that car that dad taught me how to do an oil change and set a gap on a spark plug. And it was the first car I ever drove – on a gravel back road, long before I was actually old enough to drive. That little foray into the country was preceded by words of caution from dad, “Now, your mother doesn’t need to know about this …”

As I stood there at the curb on Fort St. last Saturday, I saw ’57 Chevys, I saw ’59 Plymouths, I saw Mustangs from almost every year – same with Corvettes, and I even saw a ’56 Chevy, cream-over-red, but not a single ’55 Chevy.

That’s OK, though, because for a few hours that afternoon, I was back there where it all happened for me, and for so many others, nearly 50 years ago. I realized that Crusin’ Downriver is as much about what the cars meant to us, as it is about the cars themselves. And as much – maybe even more – about the people that we rode in those cars with and the milestones in our lives that we passed sitting in those old bench seats.

A Legend Who Taught Us Many Lessons

2010-05-08T23:36:00.006-04:00

His voice could smooth the static on my little green RCA transistor radio.

Ernie Harwell sat down at the Detroit Tigers’ microphone just about the time I got interested in baseball. The guys and I used to listen to his calls of Tigers games on hot summer afternoons while we were playing pick-up games at the dusty sandlot near Memorial School, in Riverview.

I’d often fall asleep to his voice on summer nights, with my radio tucked under my pillow when, as Ernie used to say, the Tigers were “… on a west coast swing …”

While we all dreamed of being Al Kaline or Norm Cash, or Mickey Lolich, a couple of us – my friend Jeff and me – used to dream of being Ernie. With our little reel-to-reel tape recorders, we’d sit in my garage and “broadcast” imaginary games, complete with sound effects that we’d provide for each other.

We’d play the tapes back and convince ourselves that, despite our cracking adolescent voices – and our flat Midwest accents – we sounded “just like Ernie.”

To us, as kids, Ernie Harwell was more than the voice of the Detroit Tigers. He was an inspiration. Not just as a broadcaster, but as a human being. It was through Ernie that we first heard about Baseball Chapel and learned that many ballplayers had faith lives too. We saw him live a life of humility and service, putting his fame and his status as a celebrity to work for the betterment of the communities in which his listeners lived.

While for now, we’re saddened at his death; we all can – and should – take comfort in the fact that we, for so long, were blessed to have had “…the voice of Ernie Harwell heard in our land.”

I think I'm immune to Spring Fever!

2010-03-31T21:01:00.006-04:00

I'm not feeling it.

Spring officially arrived nearly two weeks ago, but I'm not feeling any symptoms of spring fever - haven't for years. I've come down with some serious cases of playoff fever while following the Red Wings, the Pistons and even the Tigers in recent years. I've certainly suffered through annual cases of cabin fever during our long, gray winters. I even caught a brief, mild case of boogie fever a couple of years ago, when I dug out and played an old Bee Gees album.

We all take precautions to avoid catching the flu, but spring fever is something that everyone wants to catch and I, somehow, sometime, seem to have developed an immunity to it! And I'm more than a little concerned. Listening to the first Tiger exhibition broadcasts from Lakeland on my RCA transistor radio used to bring it on. Brown grass peaking out from under the melting blankets of snow on the lawns on Hinton used to bring it on. Sunny mornings walking to St. Cyprian School used to bring it on. Lots of things used to give me spring fever ...

Buds on the trees in Memorial Park
"Open Soon" on the marquee of the Fort George Drive-In
The plywood being removed from the windows of Bob Jo's
The slightly rusty chain (from spending a damp winter unused in the garage) of my Evans bike
Radio advertisements for Boblo Island
Newspaper ads for Keds and Red Ball Jets
My first glass of grape Kool-Aid of the season

I still enjoy spring. I sure look forward to it. But I don't embrace it, and it doesn't embrace me, not the way it did back in 1963; when I laced up my Red Ball Jets, gulped a glass of grape Kool-Aid and hopped on my bike (with its freshly oiled chain) to meet the guys at Memorial Park.

What about you? What gave you spring fever when we were growing up Downriver? Do you still get spring fever? If you do, what triggers your symptoms now?

Send me your Downriver spring fever memories, or post some here. Let's start an epidemic of seasonal smiles and optimism. It sure beats hay fever, which - unfortunately - I still get!

THIS is all I’m going to be when I grow up?!

2010-03-04T13:52:00.003-05:00

From left: Gordon Cooper, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, "Deke" Slayton and Scott Carpenter. Photo credit: NASA

With another birthday rapidly approaching, I have to admit to myself that I’m never going to be an astronaut. Heck, I’m never gonna’ even make it into space.

Growing up Downriver in the 1960s, the heroes of the boys in my neighborhood were named Shepard and Grissom, Glenn and Slayton, Cooper, Shirra and Carpenter. The original “Mercury 7” astronauts were mid-20th Century American swashbucklers who rocketed into the darkness of outer space, chasing adventure and pursuing the unknown. And they inspired us in ways that Mantle, Maris and Starr just couldn’t.

We didn’t want to simply be like those guys, we wanted to be those guys. Because we were afraid that by the time we grew up, being an astronaut would be different. It might even be just a job, like our dads had!

And we couldn’t imagine anything more boring than ending up like our dads. They just, well, went to work every day – at places like PEP Lines Trucking, or Wyandotte Chemical, or the Riverview DPW.

So, every cardboard box rocket ship we “built” became our way to blast out of the old neighborhood and into the excitement, adventure, and the unknown of what lay ahead for us as adults.

I thought about those days earlier this week, as I made my way downstairs in the early Monday morning darkness of inner space (home), with my family still asleep. I was getting ready to go, you guessed it, to work, and I thought, “… is this really all I’m going to be when I grow up?!”

By the time the coffee was brewed, and I was ready to leave, the rest of the family was up and getting ready for their day – the kids for school, my wife for the office of the small business she owns.

As I drove (not rocketed) off into the morning darkness, I looked back at the lights glowing in the house and thought about my dad, all those Downriver mornings, disappearing into the same darkness … before we were awake … to go to work … to make sure we had everything we needed.

I understand now that the real heroes of my old neighborhood, so many years ago, were actually the guys named Joe and Vic, Ray and Jay, Tom, Bill, and Henry – our dads. And you know what? One of those guys is a pretty good thing to be when you grow up!

Home for Christmas

2009-12-22T19:44:00.010-05:00

“I'll be home for Christmas,

You can plan on me,
Please have snow and mistletoe,
And presents on the tree …”

– I’ll Be Home For Christmas - Ram, Gannon and Kent; recorded by Bing Crosby
in October 1943

I listen to those words every Christmas through the hiss and crack of the 78 rpm record on my Grandfather’s century-old Columbia record playing machine. It’s a copy that my Uncle, Tech. Cpl. Vitaut Voselius sent to my Grandfather in Detroit, through the kindness and, I’m convinced, magic of some USO Troop that helped GIs send Christmas gifts home to their families. Uncle Vittie and his buddies were half-a-world away from home, mistletoe and any presents. They had helped chase the German Army out of North Africa in May of that year, and then hopped to the Italian peninsula to press the pursuit. By the time they met that USO troop in early November; they had fought their way ashore at Salerno, and had survived the worst that the German 16th Panzer Division could dish out.

Uncle Vittie didn’t make it home for Christmas that year, nor did he in 1944; but, by 1945 – thank God – he did. That Christmas, he had dinner with Grandpa, my Mom (his sister) and my Dad; and – like most of the veterans of WWII – got about putting the war behind him and quietly getting back to work in the world that he had just fought to save. Not quite 10 years later, he used the VA mortgage program to buy a little house on Hinton in Riverview Village that my parents rented from him until they could later afford to buy it themselves.

Every Christmas in that little house, and for as long as we were all together, we played that record on Christmas Day, all of us smiling through teary eyes at each other and just loving being together. Today, I’m the last one left from that circle, but I play the record every year for my wife and children.

And you know what? Mom, Dad, Grandpa – and especially Uncle Vittie – all come home for Christmas every time I hear it … if only in my dreams.

Merry Christmas, and the Happiest New Year to all!

Dear Santa, I want a Jimmy Jet, a cup of real hot chocolate, and it to be 1966 again

2009-11-30T21:13:00.014-05:00

Forty-three years ago, Christmastime was different. While we wrote our letters to Santa, mom made hot chocolate on the stove, from milk, sugar, Hershey’s Cocoa (from that can with the lid that went “pop!” when she opened it) and love.

Our wish lists were made up of toys made here in the U.S., by long-forgotten companies like Deluxe and Remco. And it seemed like every store – including the grocery and the hardware – magically turned into a toy store at Christmastime.
Do you remember “grocery store toys,” mostly from Deluxe, like Jimmy Jet, Suzy Homemaker and Playmobile? They were packaged in big, colorful boxes that we could easily see (and wish for) from the top of the dairy cases and the frozen food shelves at the National Supermarket.

My daughters drink hot chocolate made by my wife or me in the microwave, from water and a packet from a Swiss Miss box. Their wish lists are made up of things from Best Buy, Amazon.com and iTunes. But, for all that’s different, some things aren’t. The hot chocolate is still made with love, and their Christmas wishes are as magical to them as ours were more than 40 years ago.

Making a list and checking it twice
This is a time of year for list-making – Christmas card lists, wish lists, and lists of our blessings. Here are a few lists that I hope will rekindle some memories of Christmastime long ago Downriver.

Favorite Christmas songs
According to ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), these are the top-5 most performed Christmas songs:
1. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
2. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
4. Winter Wonderland
5. White Christmas
Is your favorite on the list? I’d bump number 5 to number 1, but all five are favorites of mine.

Favorite Christmas TV specials
Remember when TV specials really were special because we could only see them when they aired? We couldn’t TiVo them, or get them on DVD. Here, according to the A.C. Nielsen Company, are the top-5 most-watched Christmas specials:
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
3. Mickey’s Christmas Carol
4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
5. A Chipmunk Christmas
I certainly agree with number 1 because, well – that’s what Christmas is all about! For me, however, number 2 would be “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.” That one didn’t even show up in the top-25. I still remember Tiny Tim singing “We’ll have the Lord’s bright blessing, just knowing we’re together …”

I also have fond memories of Christmas specials from entertainers like Perry Como and Andy Williams. You remember the ones … with them dressed in cardigan sweaters and crooning traditional Christmas songs on a festively decorated set that could have been – and maybe, in a sense, was – our collective living room.

Favorite Christmas TV episodes
Next to the specials, our favorite Christmas TV viewing 40 years ago was the Christmas episodes of our weekly TV shows. According to amazon.com, these are the most popular, based on DVD sales:
1. Friends – Dec 14, 2000
2. Bewitched – Dec 21, 1967
3. M*A*S*H* – Dec 17, 1972
4. Growing Pains – Dec 16, 1986
5. The Wonder Years – Dec 14, 1988
“The Honeymooners Christmas” is a childhood favorite of mine. I have it on VHS, and my kids enjoy watching it with me every year.

Although neither of these shows appears on any list I’ve found, I’d put them near the top of any list I’d make:
Studio 60, “The Christmas Show,” that aired on December 4, 2006. You can see the classic musical performance from that show here:
http://www.tvsquad.com/2006/12/09/free-download-of-studio-60s-christmas-musical-performance/
The Gilmore Girls, “Forgiveness and Stuff,” that aired on December 21, 2000

Christmas “cards”
As a kid, my favorite part of the weeks before Christmas was bringing in the mail and opening the cards from friends and family. Well, I guess I’m still a kid (something else that hasn’t changed!) because I still enjoy getting holiday mail. Here are some memories sent to me by holiday e-mail that celebrate Downriver Christmas past:

Susan Maricle wrote, “… Here’s a Downriver memory that I carry with me – at Monroe Elementary in the early 60s, they sold Christmas corsages in the office for 25 cents apiece. They were pinned to a gray felt-covered bulletin board that was propped up on the front counter, so all the kids could see them through the window. They had little extra touches like a pine cone, an ornament, or a bell. I never knew who made them. Perhaps it was the school secretary, Mrs. Frostic, who years later I discovered was a famous artist.

Monroe's Christmas music assemblies were led by Mrs. Hollar. (She was just one of the perfectly named teachers at Monroe, along with Mrs. Staples for Kindergarten and Mr. Green for art.) So in my mind, Christmas corsages and Christmas music assemblies go together. When my son appeared in his first Christmas concert years ago, I ordered a corsage for the choir director. I knew nothing about corsages, except that they probably cost more than 25 cents. I described to the florist, Deb Lalli, the corsages from Monroe, with their little extra touches. She remembered a box of accessories she had in the back room and the finished product was absolutely beautiful!”
Fred Stull wrote to remind me about some very personal Christmas memories. He’s a childhood friend – we grew up on Hinton, in Riverview, where he still lives with his family. “… Some of the things that I have never forgotten about – playing Stratego® (a favorite Christmas present of mine) at your house and the bubble lights in your window at Christmas …”

Thank you, Susan and Fred, for sharing those Downriver Christmas memories; and Merry Christmas, Downriver! May you always remember the joys of our Christmases past, and may you make many new memories this Christmas present.

Soupy Sales, Ben Cooper, and Halloweens Past and Present

2009-10-28T21:14:00.007-04:00

Soupy Sales died a week ago. I heard about his death the same day I was taking my daughters shopping for Halloween costumes and pumpkin picking. It saddened me and I reminisced to them about my childhood – “Lunch with Soupy,” and all our local TV legends from the 1950s and 60s – and, because of our mission that day, about what Halloween was like for us 45 years ago.

First of all, I told them, there was no “Halloween season,” with orange lights draped over houses, electronic ghouls suspended from trees, and inflatable graveyards displayed on every other front lawn starting the day we returned to school in the fall.

Our Halloween decoration (singular) was placed on the porch just before dark on Halloween. A carved pumpkin. Period. Usually lit with a candle left over from last Christmas. Big orange vegetables that we carved ourselves at the kitchen table the day before Halloween. They had gap-toothed, crooked smiles and mismatched triangular eyes. And it wasn’t easy, because we carved them with the same knife mom used to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. We were just trying to finish the job with all our fingers accounted for and attached. Have you seen those pumpkin “carving kits” they sell today, with about a dozen assorted plastic “carving tools”? There’s not one item in those packages that a pumpkin has to fear. Now, mom’s turkey knife …

Right about then, we arrived at “Halloween Western Hemisphere” or “Spirit Halloween MegaCavern” or whatever – you know, one of those big-box specialty stores that appears in our neighborhood right after Labor Day and disappears into the mist of their artificial fog machines on November 1 – and my daughters completely tuned me out. They darted around through thousands of square feet of Halloween present, but my memories lingered in Halloween past.

Do you remember when we either dressed in homemade outfits, or one of those boxed Ben Cooper costumes? That was back when Halloween costumes took up a shelf or two at Rexall Drugs or Neisner’s, not 25,000 square feet of display space in a seasonal specialty store. They consisted of a very flimsy fabric costume parody that we stepped into and then tied behind our necks. Each one had a plastic mask artfully designed to equally restrict both our vision and our breathing; that was fastened around our heads with a rubber band which always painfully snagged a few hairs when we removed it to see where we were going – or to gasp for a breath.

There were no “haunted attractions” to thrill us, scare us, and – primarily – empty our parents’ wallets. We had real haunted places (we believed) like the “haunted house” at the corner of Parkway and Valade, where we convinced each other that generations of previous owners were buried in the yard behind the iron fence surrounding the lot. I’ll never know how many pounds of candy we missed collecting on Halloween night because, just to play it safe, we avoided that entire block.

It seemed like there were hundreds of us kids on the street Halloween night dashing from door to door, jostling for position at each doorstep and shouting “Trick of Treat!” I don’t ever remember knocking or ringing a doorbell because the action was non-stop; nobody had time to close their front door!

Our treats were special too, weren’t they? Nobody worried about eating them before they were examined, X-rayed and scanned for trace elements. Heck, sometimes we ate them right on the porch where we got 'em … like Mrs. Shallaf’s homemade popcorn balls, and Mrs. Brown’s homemade caramel apples – she actually melted the Kraft caramels and dipped the apples herself!

And I remember collecting other special treats, too; ones that related to the neighbors who handed them out. I remember our Twin Pines milkman and pints of cold, delicious chocolate milk – we drained those between his porch and the sidewalk; and the Awrey Bakery deliveryman’s miniature loaves of bread. And, back then, the candy we got really was “fun size” – BIG.

“Dad! We need money!” my daughters cried out, snapping me out of my reminiscent trance at the cash register. Their arms were full of Halloween “must-haves” that I’d never seen before, but their eyes and faces were filled with something very familiar. Excitement. Hey, maybe Halloween hasn’t changed so much, after all.

Next stop was the pumpkin patch. The girls picked a couple of good ones and later that night, we carved them together at the kitchen table… with the knife we’ll use to carve the Thanksgiving turkey.

Things are tight – Pass the bologna and re-use that waxed paper

2009-09-08T21:02:00.001-04:00

Coping with today’s struggling economy is nothing new to those of us who grew up Downriver in the late 50s and early 60s.

“Things are tight,” dad used to say, “we gotta’ make ends meet.”

“We have to make every penny count,” mom always said as I followed her up and down the aisles of the National Supermarket.

We ate bologna in all its forms – sliced, chopped and ring – because what it lacked in flavor and nutritional value, it more than made up for in affordability when dad was working on-call at Peter P. Ellis Trucking and three nights a week at Montgomery Ward.

My friends and I learned to recycle before recycling was invented. We re-used the waxed paper and foil that wrapped the sandwiches in our lunch boxes day after day, until the foil was only good for adding to the ball we each kept tucked in our desks at school, and the waxed paper was only good for polishing up the slide on the playground.

Our moms used to mend socks, wash shoe laces and put-up vegetables that they grew in their backyard gardens. Our dads all had very reasonable lawn services – us. And we cut the lawns with push mowers and trimmed them with squeaky clippers that required us to be on our knees and left our hands numb from squeezing the too-big handles with rusty old tension springs.

Decades before “staycations,” we did things close to home when dad would take a week off work in the summer – a night at the Fort George Drive-In, or a day at Bob Lo were big events for us, because mom and dad usually couldn’t afford those kinds of entertainment throughout the year.

Those lessons learned years ago are still good ones. Our family makes an event of $2 movies and trips to the library. My kids re-use their zip-lock sandwich bags and they refill their water bottles a couple of times before recycling them. Me? I still pack my lunch every day, but even though I try to “make every penny count,” and my wife and I try to “make ends meet,” I haven’t once in the past 45 years, ever taken another bite of bologna!

What lessons did you learn growing up Downriver about making ends meet? How did your family cope if things were tight? Has that experience helped you now?

‘What I did on my summer vacation’ – an essay that’s 42 years late

2009-08-04T14:22:00.000-04:00

I’m about 42 years late with this essay.

Sister James Marian assigned it to my classmates at St. Cyprian School, in Riverview, in September of 1966, as they struggled to re-adjust to being back in their desks – and their uniforms – after a summer of fun and freedom. She never assigned it to me because I never returned to St. Cyprian that fall. And, as much as my classmates were struggling to re-adjust, I had some significant adjustments of my own.

All through the spring of 1966 my family and I packed. We packed dishes and appliances, books and toys, and I packed my memories and dreams. Throughout those months, I ignored the real estate sign on the front lawn that read “sold.” I still got together with my friends, especially Joe Bishop and Neven Vos, but we spent more time boxing up my belongings than we did riding bikes or playing ball.

Just weeks after leaving St. Cyprian, and watching my old house on Hinton blur through my tears as I stared out the window of my dad’s ’62 Chevy, I found myself at my new house in Detroit, sitting among my boxes of treasures. I refused to unpack because, as I saw it, unpacking meant I was gone forever from Riverview, from Downriver, from everyone and everything I’d known and loved for the first 12 years of my life.

I still wasn’t fully unpacked a year later, but in the summer of 1967, I finally realized that I was gone forever from Riverview. Some people called it a "riot," others a "civil disturbance," but no matter what it was called, for a kid transplanted from Downriver, the summer of 1967 was terrifying. The National Guard and U.S. Army units were marshaled just a block south of my house, at Detroit City Airport. The city was under a curfew and I could see, and smell, smoke from burning buildings just blocks away. I retreated to my room and finally unpacked my box of comic books; to hide out in a world that was familiar to me and, by the last page of the comic, usually made some sort of sense - unlike what was happening around me.

That’s how I spent my summer vacation in 1967, Sister, in my room, with my comic books, hoping and praying things would get better, and remembering better summers – like 1965.

I started the summer of ‘65 the way I remember starting every summer before – by getting a flat top haircut at Mike’s Barber Shop and getting a brand-new pair of P.F. Flyers.

My P.F. Flyers were not just summer shoes – liberating my feet from the leather torture devices that passed for shoes that I wore daily to school – they were a kind of summer calendar. As they aged, so passed the summer.

By mid- to late-June, the laces were gray with dust from the baseball field. Sometime in July, the rubber at the toes and heels was worn smooth, and by late July I’d usually lost a couple of those metal grommets from the air holes. By August, bits of rubber began to flap around the toes, the logo had pulled off the heel and the laces were frayed. By Labor Day, my P.F. Flyers made their last appearance, usually at the State Fair, with soles worn thin and laces tied two or three holes below my ankle because they had broken weeks before. The day after Labor Day, I was forcing my feet into stiff new leather “school shoes” and my P.F. Flyers were tossed on the floor of my closet.

As I look back, it would have been much more appropriate to give all those old pairs of P.F. Flyers decent burials behind the garage every Labor Day weekend. They were, after all, really summer pals who deserved a better end.

In the summer of ‘65, I saw Elvis in “Harum Scarum” at the Fort George Drive-In with the Podolack family. I went to Bob-Lo and finally got the courage to ride the Wilde Maus, one time. On a dare. Once was enough. The Zugspitz was plenty for this thrill-seeking kid! Throughout the summer of ‘65, I think I consumed about a gallon of frozen custard from Bob Jo’s and certainly ate many dollars worth of penny candy from Ed’s Market.

I listened to my transistor radio – baseball mostly, but some music. I didn’t discover the genius of The Beatles until I was older. That summer, I preferred Dino, Desi and Billy; and Gary Lewis and The Playboys. I rode my bike, too; and we played ball at the park. And I did a lot of just hanging around with my buddies.

My best memories of that last golden summer of my childhood were rekindled just a year ago, in the summer of 2008, when many of those dear old friends and classmates – the St. Cyprian class of 1968 – got together again, thanks to the efforts of my old buddies, Joe and Neven. Despite not "officially" being a part of that class through graduation, they kindly included me in the celebration; and we all shared stories about the 40 years of summer vacations that had passed.

Well, Sister James Marian no longer assigns essays to students. She’s "semi-retired" and living in Monroe, Mich., (and is a very effective fund-raiser for her order - the IHM Sisters, my check is in the mail, Sister ...) – but if she did, and if I were to write an essay for her about what I did on my summer vacation in 2008, I’d write that I rediscovered the deepest, most solid parts of the foundation upon which my adult life was built. I’d write that I reconnected with the first and best friends I ever made in my life. And I’d write that – even after more than 40 years – the best times, the best places, and the best people still live in our memories.

Twenty-two years of cartoons, but a 50-year relationship

2009-08-04T14:10:00.000-04:00

This year marks my 22nd year celebrating Downriver communities, people and issues with my editorial cartoons in The News-Herald. Twenty-two years is a long time, but our relationship goes back much longer than that. Thirty years longer, to be exact.

I grew up down river back when it was just that – two words, lower case – and meant, to many people who didn’t live here simply, “that area south of Detroit before you get to Monroe …”

I lived in Riverview (a village when I moved in), on Hinton and I learned my most important life lessons and made the best friends I ever had in that neighborhood and at St. Cyprian School. I got my haircuts at Hubert’s Barber Shop and learned to ride my two-wheeler one memorable weekend in the empty parking lot of People’s Bank.

I saw my favorite movies at the Fort George Drive-In and at the Wyandotte Theater (before there was even an “Annex”). I rode midway rides at the local amusement park at a time when places like Bob-Lo Island and Edgewater Park might as well have been Disney Land, because they all seemed equally distant.

I played “army” at Memorial Park and I made many braided key chains at the activity center (which looked very much like a garage) at Ray St. Park. I collected empty two-cent pop bottles and cashed them in for penny candy at Ed’s Market or at Pat’s Stone Front Market, depending upon which side of town my buddies and I were “working.”

And my best memories are of those buddies – of Mark and Johnny, Joe, Fred and Ronald, David, Richard, Greg, Larry, Kurt and Neven; and of the girls I pretended not to like, too – Carla, Diane, Karen, Philomene and Suzy.

Life and career led me away from Downriver – but not far. My kids have been to St. Cyprian Church, they’ve played at Memorial Park, they’ve had frozen custard at the Bob-Jo and I drag them annually to go Cruisin’ Downriver.

Downriver was, is and always will be, my home, even though my address isn’t on Hinton anymore. Now it’s in my heart.