National Hug Day

Editing out the shiny parts

I spend a lot of time here taking long strolls down Memory Lane.

I write about my love for my hometown.


And, as we're often guilty of doing, I fear I show only the shiny side.


Today I'm feeling a little sad.


Not sure entirely why - I'm just kinda prone to sad days from time to time.


And too, even though Donald is home today and we're calling it a holiday, it's actually a hard won day of celebration of a man I greatly admire.  



You've read a lot about Cambridge, MD here.  Well, Cambridge has a not so shiny side when it comes to this man and to his fight.


Here's an edited version of a previous blog.  Edited out are the shiny parts.




. . .  What I haven't written about is how my heart was broken by this town during the '60s.

Cambridge was one of the first places the Freedom Riders visited in 1962.

Here's what I remember.

My dad and I stood at the beautiful big bay windows in our apartment in the Arcade.  We watched young, well dressed blacks get off a bus and attempt to walk into the drugstore in our apartment lobby.  I remember asking my dad what was going on, and he explained a little by saying the people we were watching get off the bus wanted things to change.  And that people were scared of change.  And that it would get ugly.

That is the only memory I have of that day, but I knew something was wrong.  I was 12 years old.

The memories following this day are a jumble, but they're vivid.

For the next few years all I remember clearly is that we seemed to  fluctuate between things being normal and things being violent.

I don't have a clear time-line of it all in my mind.

I remember National Guardsmen lining our downtown streets.  They were armed with rifles and bayonets.  They slept in tents in our school yards.

Then they were gone.

Then they were back.

The drugstore in the lobby of our apartment building closed down.  This rather than serve blacks.

The public swimming pool closed down.  The chief of police said he would rather pour dirt into the pool and plant flowers than allow blacks to swim in it.

We were on TV.  People all over the country watched a white man who owned a local restaurant smash a raw egg over the head of a young black man who was part of a sit-in in front of the restaurant.

We were written up in Life Magazine.

Robert Kennedy came to town.

H. Rap Brown came to town.  

Ironically, another memory is of my dad and I standing together at the window again.  But this time it was a window in our house on Bucktown Road, outside of town.  It was 1967 and I was 17.  We had, sadly, only recently moved away from the Arcade Apartments.  We saw flames in the distance and my dad said, "Oh, my God, they're burning down the town."  And as dumb as it might have been, because by this time the violence had gotten really bad, mother and dad and I got in the car and drove into town to see if it was, in fact, burning down. 

What was burning was the black section of town.  This act has since been attributed to words spoken by Mr. Brown while standing atop a car shouting "If this town don't come around, this town should be burned down."

I didn't write about these things, but Peter B. Levy did, in a book named CIVIL WAR ON RACE STREET.  (ISBN 0813026385).

No, I have never been so naive as to think or remember Cambridge as Utopian.

No, sadly, I know better.

I remember.

And if I ever come close to forgetting, I remember a more recent incident.

We were at a class reunion a few years ago.  Donald and I walked down to the water.  A classmate, someone I considered a close friend, walked down to join us and we chatted about how much we loved Cambridge.  And how much we loved the Class of '66.  He looked at me and smiled and said, "Know what I love best about it?"  What, I asked.  "That we were the last class to graduate without any niggers."



Something inside me shattered.



And, I will never, never forget the smile on his face.



But, still - my love for Cambridge rests in my heart.

It made me who I am.  And I thank God most days that I'm not that classmate filled with such ugly hate.  Hate that he's so stupidly proud of.

Remembering what this day is all about

Football

I used to be such a football fan.

College football - Georgia Tech.


Pro football - well . . .   Long story.

My football love started when I was growing up with a dad who was an obsessive Colts fan.  Actually, I'm not sure there was any other kind of Colts fan.

Tickets were impossible to come by.

When someone died their Colts tickets were passed down.


My dad did not own a Colts season ticket, but he owned "part" of one.


So he didn't get to all the home games, but those he did get to were always something he enjoyed more than just about anything else he did.


And he was usually in trouble the next day.


He would go with this crazy crowd of cronies.  They were always later getting home than he said they would be.  Much later.  And he would usually bring my mom a gift to ease the pain of the wrath of Hazel.


I hesitate to mention some of the gifts 'cause I don't want you to think less of my dad, but LordAMercy.  They were awful.


Okay.  Here's one.


Only a group of idiot men coming home late from a football game will think it's a good idea to stop along the side of the road and pick up (okay, let's just say it - steal) a State of Maryland smudge pot.

Anyone remember when this is what road crews would use at night to mark the roads?  Like say, they were doing a repair and wanted to re-route cars away from the repair site?  There would be a line of these flaming smudge pots showing a new traffic pattern.


Well, we had one.


And no, my mom was not happy.


I think I remember her saying one  time when she was mad at my dad that she was going to call the State of Maryland and turn him in for stealing state property.


And I think we all got kinda tickled about that, truth be told.


What can I say - I was raised by crazy people who laughed at crazy stuff.  And did crazy stuff.



Anyway.



When my dad couldn't be at a game and when it was on TV there was always this group of rowdies hanging out at our place.  The Arcade.  


Here's the roster - Tom Duncan and his dog Bobo (I loved Bobo.  Loved Tom too).  Dude Willoughby and his younger brother Young Dude Willoughby.  Some guy named Fish.  Another guy named Moose.  There was a Donnie (the only one I didn't particularly care for).  And a sweet old guy named Fred.

They would drink beer.  A lot of beer.


My mom would make sandwiches, or sometimes cook them a nice meal.  She would put it out on the kitchen table so they could help themselves and then she would disappear into the bedroom, close the door and read or nap.


She was not a fan of football.


Me?


I was usually on the floor, sitting between my dad's feet sneaking sips out of his beer.


This was a problem.


My mother would pitch a fit about him allowing his only child to become an alcoholic before the age of 10.  (I'm telling you, she had some great lines).


It was also a problem when the Colts would score and everyone in the room would stand up, arms straight up in the air, screaming SCORE!


I occasionally had my fingers stepped on.  I also occasionally would accidentally hit someone in the nose when my hands went straight up for the SCORE!


We had an old sofa that sat on 4 short little wooden legs.  When the guys sat back down one Sunday after the SCORE! all four legs popped off the sofa and pinged against the walls.


Oh, yes - Hazel Wilkinson was thrilled.


Long story short - a new sofa was bought.


But the very next time the guys were over to watch the Colts someone's cigar was dropped and there was a nasty burn in the sofa arm.


WHY my mom put up with all this I will never know.  


But these things did make for great stories, I have to say.



You might already know the end of this particular saga.





Colts owner Robert Irsay moved the team from Baltimore to Indianapolis, completely unannounced, in the early morning hours of March 29, 1984. This after having been THE team in Baltimore since 1953.




Believe me when I say this is still a topic of conversation and it has not yet been forgiven.


When we were cleaning out my mom's apartment we found this -

Oh, yes.  This was a huge hit back in 1984.


But I had to laugh that my mom still had it.

Tucked in a drawer.

An old 45 that had been my dad's.

Back when he was heartbroken and mad as hell about losing the Colts.

Back when we actually had a turntable on which this record could be played.



Moving ahead quite a few years and I was now in Atlanta and pulling for the Atlanta Falcons.


There were always, always, always, people at my house watching football.


Once again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.


My furniture was now the furniture bearing football scars.


My house was now the place people were drinking beer and standing up to shout SCORE!


I was the one making sandwiches and leaving them in the kitchen for everyone to help themselves.



LordAMercy.



I had become my mother AND my father.


I was also flat in love with the Pittsburgh Steelers.


All of them!


But mostly I loved Terry Bradshaw, Mean Joe Greene, Franco Harris and Lynn Swann.  Man - I loved those guys.



But, as time went on I lost my taste for football.



But.


It's back.


and in a big way.


Now I'm head over heels in love with Cam Newton who is a breath of fresh air.


And now I'm a happy girl with my bum parked in front of the TV on Sundays watching the Panthers play ball.  And I will still stand up and shout SCORE!



Football is fun for me again.


Who knew?!


So.  In about 30 minutes I'll be reliving the kind of Sunday I used to live.  Back from the time I was a kid sitting between her dad's feet stealing sips of beer.  Today though I'll be in my own chair, drinking my own glass of wine, and I'll be thinking about my dad.


And, I'll be darned,  after the Panther's game - I'll probably be right there in that same chair watching the Steelers.


Are you ready for some football?

Saying Goodbye

This week we've said goodbye to two icons.

David Bowie and Alan Rickman

Did I know them?

Why, no.  Of course not.

But did they manage to touch me in some way?

They did.



Music has always been a very big part of my life.

This started back when I was just a kid growing up in the amazingly quirky Arcade Apartments in Cambridge, MD.

My parents were both lovers of music.

And dancing.

Oh, how they loved to dance.

There weren't many Saturday nights that they weren't out dancing, often bringing the band home with them where they would end up spending the night.  Jamming, singing, laughing.  The band members and their wives or girlfriends were part of a very large extended family that I remember having around the breakfast table with us for a lot of years.

I remember sitting and listening to a lot of jam sessions.  And singing along.

When the bands weren't there, the radio was on.

And I can still hear my dad's voice saying, "C'mon, Hazel, let's dance," as he turned up the radio and swept my mom into a jitterbug in our kitchen.  It was a huge kitchen and was the perfect place for them to spin, spin, spin.  


One of the favorite family vacations would include music on The Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ.


There I remember seeing Fabian, Paul Anka, Conway Twitty (when he was doing pop, not country, music), Dion and Frankie Avalon.  And, my favorite, Louie Armstrong.




And because our apartment was directly over the only movie theater in town, I saw a lot of movies.  Formed a lot of crushes on those guys I watched on the big screen.




Things, it seems, change but stay the same.

All night jam sessions seem to have become, somehow, a part of my life even as I grew up and moved away from home.

I remember many of them in various different apartments in Atlanta.

And concerts became a part of my life.


This was when my friend Becky and I were in Underground Atlanta one night, walked into a bar and with serendipity walking along with us happened onto Percy Sledge on a small stage singing "When a Man Loves a Woman."  Pure magic.



Live music.  wow.  There is nothing like it.


I've been lucky enough to see a lot of the great bands and artists I love.  


Beginning, I guess with a Motown concert I sneaked into Baltimore to see.  Telling my parents I was going to a dance in the next small town on Salisbury.  Baltimore was easily on the top of the "You will not do this" list for me when I was in high school.  So driving into Baltimore with friends to see a concert just felt deliciously dangerous to this small town 15 year old girl.

It was worth knowingly breaking that rule to see Otis Redding, Martha & the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles and Mary Wells.

Was I hooked?

Pfft.

What do you think?

Hell, yes, I was hooked!


Getting to see The Temptations and The Four Tops at The University of Delaware when I was at Brandywine College just capped the love this gal now had for live music.

To sit in audience able to watch a favorite artist perform his music moves me in a way I can't express.  So usually, I just cry.  Cry buckets.  And yes, it's embarrassing.  But I can't help it.  Beauty moves me to tears.  Being able to watch someone make music they love, sing the words to a song they wrote - a song that came from their heart.  Man.  Yes.  I'm gonna cry.  I cried so hard at an Eric Clapton concert, poor Donald was afraid the people sitting around us were going to think he had done something awful to me.  Which, of course, he did not.  He just sat there and held my hand.  and he understood.

By the time it happened again at the Don Williams concert in Asheville, NC he saw it coming and quietly handed me tissues he had thought to bring.


So yes, David Bowie's death affected me.




And then Alan Rickman.




Who didn't love Alan Rickman?


Wasn't he everyone's secret crush?


Who else could have been Professor Snape?


To those of us already captured by the magic of Harry Potter, watching the actors chosen to bring the characters to life through the movies were captivated and enchanted once again.  And felt as though we knew these people.  They became more than fictional characters to us - and none more so than Alan Rickman's Professor Snape.


No, I didn't know him.  Not really.  But don't we all feel like we kinda do?  Don't we feel like we'd enjoy having dinner with a particular celebrity and hear him tell stories that we can just sit back and relish?  Watch his face become animated and hear him laugh?  Alan Rickman seemed to possess a wicked and sly and intelligent sense of humor.  I am always a sucker for a man with a wry and dry sense of humor.  



Last night I watched the Willie Nelson tribute concert for being awarded The Gershwin Prize.


And I cried.


The artists performing Willie's music did a fantastic job.


And then Willlie performed.


And he looked every one of his 82 years.  and I cried.


Watched him make music with his two sons.


and I cried.



I've seen Willie Nelson in concert maybe 15 or more times over the years.


If there's a celebrity icon out there that has touched me more than anyone else, it's Willie.


I have no explanation.


Why should I?



I've read some snide comments on Facebook this week ridiculing people who have expressed sadness at the deaths of celebrities.


These people, I believe, must be hard, unfeeling people.


So, I stopped reading those comments, instead focusing on the words of people who reacted with honest sadness.


One of those was Samantha Bennett who writes poetry that resonates with me.


Here's what she wrote this week - - - 

For the Shape Shifters 


You knew that life was a limited-time offer.
Luckily, you could see through walls 
and veils 
and minds. 
Silly you thought that everybody had x-ray vision 
But we don't. 
So we were always so surprised by what you perceived. 
Perception. Perspective. Perspicacious. 
Purr Purr Purr 
You could talk to the animals and they talked right back. 
In your silence we saw stars. 
You were not here for our entertainment. 
You were here for our illumination. 
Thank you for the light. 

And now, for your final trick 
You have disappeared. 
And we're still here believing that
time is real and 
money matters 
and that you were ever really here to begin with
or that you have truly gone. 

©2016 Samantha Bennett 
Created with love for:

1/7: Richard Libertini, 82, actor
1/8: Brian Bedford, 80, actor
1/10: David Bowie, 69, force of nature
1/12: C.D. Wright, 67, poet
1/13: Lois Weisberg, 90, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for Chicago, IL.
1/14: Alan Rickman, 69, actor 


Share your work, people. We're not here forever.

Yours,
Sam

And, here's an excellent article which talks about "Why We Grieve The Loss of Cultural Icons."  It makes perfect sense to me.  You may enjoy it.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/david-bowie-alan-rickman-grief_5697d1cde4b0b4eb759d7102

Love has a downside. Even beach love.

Of the seven most common cancers in the US, melanoma is the only one whose incidence is increasing. Between 2000 and 2009, incidence climbed 1.9 percent annually. 1 in 50 men and women will be diagnosed with melanoma of the skin during their lifetime.Jan 8, 2016

Skin Cancer Facts - SkinCancer.org

There is not a single person who knows me who doesn't know of my love for the beach.

When I was growing up I don't think there were many warm spring or summer days that my mom didn't pack me to up to go to the beach.

Cambridge isn't on the ocean, we had to drive two hours for that treat, but it is on the beautiful Choptank River which is a major tributary of the Chesapeake Bay and is 71 gorgeous miles long.  

As a teenager I started spending my summer days at the Cambridge pool rather than the beaches.  I remember those days vividly and fondly.  

I also started finding my way to the ocean more often and would settle in for weeks at a time to play in Ocean City.  Always nice to have friends and/or family living there.  There was always a place to stay.  The philosophy, as I recall was, the more the merrier.

LordAMercy, I do still love Ocean City.

Finding my way back to the water after leaving the Eastern Shore became a need that was always going to find a way to be met.


And now that I'm retired I'm finding ways to meet it more often.


But.


Those carefee days of worshiping the sun while slathered in a universal concoction of baby oil and iodine to help get the darkest tan possible eventually reached days of payback.


I stopped loving falling asleep on the beach in the sun, but never stopped looking out over the water.


I just moved myself from directly under the sun to a deck close by.


And now, rather than baby oil and iodine I'm slathered in sunscreen.  And there's more often than not, a hat plopped onto my head.


And I'm happy to do it.


But.


There's still a price to be paid for those early days when we were encouraged to go outside and play 'cause the sun was our friend.


There's a great piece that is attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, which has since been declared as not written or presented by him.  Whatever.  It's a great piece. You can read it here:  http://scripting.com/specials/commencement.html

"Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now."

Had I read this earlier would I have heeded the advice?


Probably not.


Not speaking for all teens, but this gal gave serious things like melanoma and skin cancer not nary a thought.

I doubt I truly and deeply felt I was immortal, but hey - all that stuff was a long, long way away.  Why worry about all that stuff now?


And yes, I am still devoted to the beach.


Looking out over a seemingly unending body of water soothes my soul.  My heart.  Calms my mind.  Brings perspective.


There's nothing in my life that can come anywhere close to giving me what the beach gives me.


Good things, of course.


But some not so good.



Several years ago I started having some rough red patches break out on my face.  Keratosis.  Sun damage.  Resulting in annual dermatologist visits for a close look to spot anything that might be showing on my skin that shouldn't.


I go in and I have the Keratosis places frozen more often that once a year.  Most of them go away.  But only for a time and then one morning one or more will have reappeared.


I have a prescription lotion to use on them, but there are a couple of stubborn spots it doesn't seem to even faze.

My latest annual visit to the dermatologist was a little scarier than the previous ones because I was watching the doctor's face as she said, "I don't really like the looks of this."


And it took a week to hear results from a biopsy.


The results were good, really  -  "abnormal.  pre-cancer.  clean margins."


But the abnormal part means I get examined more often now than the once a year I have been doing.


Apparently, or so I'm told, once there's been a abnormality found, they become more prevalent.




All this is nothing more than me rambling and rattling on with relief, I guess at hearing "pre-cancer," rather than "cancer."


And maybe will remind some of you, if you're not already doing so, to make an appointment with a dermatologist.  



My next trip to the beach?  Next month.  And I'm hoping for snow.  (But I'll still pack my sunscreen).

Discovering A New Bookstore

A re-post.
Originally posted at Jungle Red

SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016

"Oh, Kaye!" Discovers a New (to her) Bookstore

We always spend part of our Christmas in Alabama where we celebrate the holiday with "The Birmingham Barleys."  Sadly though, one of us was missing this year - missed you, Harrison Barley!

Donald's parents, knowing how much I love books and bookstores,  have tried for several years to get me to a bookstore not too many miles from their house.  A place by the name of 2nd & Charles, but it seems as though our time there is short, and I just never have made it.

But this year, I did.

While Don and his dad were at The Barber Museum (where they easily managed to spend the entire day), 

I spent several hours at 2nd & Charles in Hoover, AL

It's huge!

and wonderful.



This wall is made from books.  And I saw a lot of very familiar books included here

I spent pretty close to four hours wandering and shopping.

and could have easily gone back the next day and done it all over again.


But we had to leave to come home.


There's always the next trip though.  Hopefully, sometime this summer.



This is one of the bags of books I brought home with me.

My favorite is the Frank Gehry pop-up book.

Frank Gehry's buildings are phenomenal and sometimes startling.

To find some of them in a pop-up book tickled me no end.

What's more fun than a pop-up book?!

Besides feeding my craving for a pop-up book, I was also able to feed another fondness.

There was a table full of poetry books.

Buy one/Get one Free.  

Did this please me?

Why, boy howdy, yes.  

Yes it did.

I have been a long time fan of Jewel's music.

I think I had read that she was publishing her poetry, but had not run across any.

Until discovering 2nd & Charles, that is.

2nd & Charles sells new books, but they also sell used books.

I love picking up used books.

I know there are many of you who feel pain when seeing books marked up, or books that have been dog-eared.

Being the weird soul that I am, I have a different reaction.

I feel as though I've discovered secrets.

Someone read a book that resonated with them.

Found passages they might want to go back to, so turn down a corner of the page.

Or, guessing that they must have really liked the piece on this page not only turned down the corner, but circled the poem.

I love this.

I love feeling like I'm part of a person's interaction with a book.  

A visceral tactile interaction.

It makes the book feel a little more alive to me, and causes me to wonder about the owner.  Why did this particular piece interest her so?  Did it stir a memory?  Was it sad?  Did it cause her to miss someone?  And why did she part with this book?

So.

I came home with books for me,  books for friends,  a pop-up book, a good bit of poetry - one book in particular which is lavishly illustrated, a cook book, a book about dreams, a couple children's books and several novels.

AND -

a pair of Corgi socks.

Now, I gotta say.


When I can find a fun pair of Corgi socks in a bookstore?


Well.


Suffice to say that particular bookstore just flat rocks in my book.


and life is good.