A Legend Who Taught Us Many Lessons

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!

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?!

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

“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

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

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

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?