Post by Mansons2005 on Jun 7, 2013 2:50:35 GMT
When I was very young I remember watching the clock on Saturday mornings. All of us boys would run into the house and up the front stairs to the first landing just before noon. The sun would come directly through the big stained glass window on the landing casting colors on all of our faces. At twelve o’clock the Noon Whistle would blow at the firehouse in the village and just as it ended, all 13 clocks in our house would strike noon. For a full minute, the house was alive with the sound of gongs, chimes, cuckoos, and the tinkle of the little porcelain clock in Gram’s room.
Coping with my parents divorce and its social and emotional consequences (there was only one “ground” for divorce in 1960’s New York State), dealing with some massive, politically driven family schisms. Grandpa had just died. Gram was pickling herself in the bottom of a Jamison’s bottle. We were going to have to sell the house in Manhattan. The world was falling apart. I had just come home from a particularly bad week at school and I was standing on the back porch. It was hot and blindingly sunny and I could hear the women in the kitchen behind me talking and smell whatever they were baking, the heat brought out the smell of the roses on the trellis and I kept catching a whiff of the sharp smells from the stables and fresh mown grass. And I knew that no matter how bad things got, I could always come home and everything would be all right. Not the same, not the way it was, probably not always happy, but all right.
Coming home from school on Friday night and calling out “Who Am I?” and having Ma answer “You’re Number 3 – only 4 more to go! And don’t slam the door!” as she counted off our arrivals. First one home was allowed to pick dessert for Sunday dinner, after which we all went down to the train station together to go back to our respective schools for another week.
I was helping a friend move into a new apartment in the early 1970’s. Her new roommate walked through the door with her arms full, followed by her friends. The new roommate stopped dead in her tracks and looked me square in the eyes – we stood that way for at least three beats. She broke the mood but set my future when she said “I don’t have time now, and I have a date later, but you and I WILL do it!”
As a young man, at a particularly bad time in my life I moved back to Mother’s for a while. Once in a while she and I would stay up late watching television in silence. Just before Johnny Carson would come on she would say “I feel like a little something to eat – you?” We would creep into the kitchen, super quiet so we wouldn’t wake up the housekeeper, make a splendid mess and pig out on liederkranz with raw onion on pumpernickel and cold beer (peasant food!), while talking and looking for “The Meaning of Life” in Carson’s cheesy suits.
One of the last Christmases all of us boys were home for the holiday. My brother Kevin was trying to convince us that you could not break an egg if you applied extreme pressure to just the ends. Of course the egg shifted in his hands and it literally exploded. I remember the surprised look on his face and the yolk dripping off of his mustache. My youngest brother fell to the floor laughing until he literally wet his pants and of course that set us off to new gales of laughter. We laughed until we ached. Even my usually dour sep-father was collapsed in a chair with tears running down his face. And Ma, who believed in leading by example, made the coupe de grace when she sat down and said “Sh*t, I haven’t laughed like that in years!”. Oh, how I remember the hurt in my side…………………
One weekend in the late 1970’s my wife and I took the sea-plane from Manhattan out to Fire Island to visit a friend for the weekend. I remember getting off the plane and being greeted by Ralph’s houseboy bearing a huge tray of tall, sparkling glasses full of clinking ice and gin and tonic. Garnished with the greenest lime slices I have ever seen. Oh, that was refreshing – I do believe that I’ll have another …………The next full memory we have is that of waking up on the Manhattan bound train on Tuesday afternoon. And for years I have had vague flashbacks of complete and utter decadence and debauchery. And my wife and I never talked about it…………….odd for two people who lived on the edge as a rule and love sharing it………….
After my mother died, we were cleaning out her dressing room. There was a set of boxes in assorted sizes, all embroidered with her mother’s family crest. They were full of gloves and handkerchiefs and lingerie, etc. There was also a piece of linen about 2 feet wide by 6 feet long embroidered with the same pattern. But no one could understand why a dresser scarf would be crafted so that the pattern was “sideways” (portrait as opposed to landscape). I was the only one who remembered back to the day when Ma had a girl to help her dress – and after her clothes were laid out on a chair in preparation for dressing, the girl would drape the “clothes cover” over them until Ma got out of the bath…………….
One Friday night my youngest brother came home from school and announced that his school was having a White Elephant Sale and he had to donate something. He had no idea what a White Elephant was so we explained that it was something that was usually coveted, most likely decorative, definitely admired and very expensive to maintain. He thought for a minute and said “Too bad we threw out the box the refrigerator came in. Mom would fit in that wouldn’t she?”
During one very long week of school break all seven of us boys were home. It rained non-stop. By day five there was crying and whining. And non-stop cries of “Mom! Mommy, Mom!” And Our Lady of Serenity, otherwise known as Mommy, totally lost it and practically screamed “Don’t call me Mommy! Call me Sam or Dan or Myrtle, don’t call me Mommy!” From then until 24 hours before she died I called her Sam in all of our “private” moments…..
Sunday dinner – (maternal) Grandfather would get up from the table after the soup and slip into the pantry. He would come back bearing a huge platter with either a roast of beef or a (highly aromatic) haunch of venison sauerbraten. In a very thick and exaggerated German accent he would expound on how long it took him to cook that meat and the exact process he employed. And we would all giggle because we could hear the housekeeper in the pantry saying that the closest “that man” ever came to the kitchen was to dump his day’s dead and bloody catch on her nice clean floor and expect her to cook it up. And Grandfather would “admit” that the process he actually used was to “kiss the cook and tickle her chin” so she would give us nice, rare beef. I listened to that routine for 15 years, week in and week out…………I stopped being amused after about year 6, but now I smile, and even giggle a bit………………
An evening at the hotel bar at the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam. The bar tender (Mario?), made the best, driest, coldest gin martinis east of the Oak Bar. When I hit number 20 he declared that I had the record for “most drunk and still standing”. Five years later I returned with my father after telling him that this was probably the best hotel bar in Europe. We sat down and the bartender glanced at us and walked off to the other end of the bar. Just as Papa was beginning to complain that the service was certainly NOT the best in Europe, the bartender (Mauricio?) came back, placed a martini in front of me, greeted me by name and asked my father what he wished to drink.
The only time I remember my mother slapping me – I publically told a male member of one of New York’s 400 that he was just a parvenu, not Old Family, like some of us. Ma couldn’t bear snobbery. Some years later that same guy went out a window while his mother and brother were in the room. That slap still stings.
Shortly after being appointed to an executive position at the airline I worked for I proved that I was NOT yet executive material. Without realizing that the conference room was already fully populated by fellow executives of both genders, not only my boss, I barged in announcing “Jes&& H. Chr&&, this room is as hot as a crotch”! I stood there open mouthed, wishing the floor would open and swallow me up, until my boss said “Did you have a particular crotch in mind, or are you speaking in generic terms? Do you recommend forming a committee to investigate?” Immediate, if slightly uncomfortable, laughter. I would have died for that man ……………
First time I brought my future wife home to a family dinner (and a completely different way of life). The conversation was about whom at the table was left-handed versus right-handed. My brother had just finished explaining that he could use either hand with equal dexterity. My (future) wife, who was equally dexterous, blurted out “I’m bi-sexual too!” She claims it was simple confusion on her part, but since ambidextrous and bi-sexual don’t even sound alike, I have always suspected that she did it on purpose – maybe to see if my Grandmother was actually capable of smiling?
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My 16th birthday, commonly referred to as the Sterling Year. Next to my breakfast plate were an even dozen wrapped gifts instead of the usual card. A cigarette case and lighter, a cigar cutter, a card case (and 1,000 calling cards), a hip flask, a key chain with a monogrammed fob (and house keys and a key to the station wagon), a set of shirt studs and cufflinks, an insignia ring, a Dunhill pen and Pencil set, and more. All sterling – all signifying that in my family I was “officially in training” to become a gentleman, when the sterling should be replaced with 18k if I had learned to use all of those accoutrements responsibly and as intended.
Watching a PBS programme about festivals around the world. Just as I was getting one of my ridiculous urges to act like an irresponsible teenager, even though I was in my forties at the time, my phone rang. A colleague from the airline I worked for had been watching the same programme and had the same thought. Two days later I was impersonating a bottle of catsup at the Tomatina in Bunol.
My first riding lesson. I thought I knew it all; after all it is JUST a horse. Ran over, shoved my right foot into the stirrup and as I swung my leg up I realized that I was backwards. Trying to get my leg back down I kicked the mount and he dragged me completely around the ring. Twice. Remembering the laughter and the raw spots on the back of my arse and my head I now think twice before I even get in a car……………..
Moving into my first apartment with a mattress, a desk and some empty milk crates as the only furnishings. Anxiously awaiting the first visits of my parents and their respective “others” to see how they were going to help me out. An antique Haviland dinner service for 12, plate flatware for 12, and some really fine linens. And me literally without a pot to cook in ……………….
Sleeping on the sitting room floor because I came home after 11:00 PM when we were under Mother’s “Any Empty Bed Is Fair Game” edict on weekends when she took in battered women, visiting students, a cousin and his buddies stationed at Key West Naval base, a friend of a friend of a third cousin once removed who showed up at the door with a letter of introduction, or even once an entire Glee Club that was in town for a GRAMMER school competition.
Being presented to the sister (a princess) of a reigning Queen and being so flummoxed that I curtsied – not bowed, CURTISIED! I cringe just typing that.
I spent a few years in utter confusion over my father’s reaction when I refused to enter the military. Every male (and many females) in our family had served since the American Revolution. He told me that I was a disgrace and that no one in our family would ever do anything so unconventional and dishonorable. This from a man who got a New York State divorce in the 1960’s and promptly moved into a COMPLETELY unconventional and controversial relationship that lasted 35 years.
Completely broke, nothing to eat, no income due for at least a week and too proud (and ashamed) to ask family for help. Thinking I may be able to get a few bucks for it at hock, I took down my Grandfather’s copy of “Le Collier de la Reine” by Dumas Pere. Flipping through the pages to check the condition I came upon a twenty dollar bill. I ate for a three days on that $20.
Sunday evenings when the help was off, Ma would make “chafing dish” food and set it up on the coffee table in the lounge and the entire family would sit on the floor to eat and watch The Wonderful World of Disney and Ed Sullivan. I now get teary eyed when ever I hear the Lennon Sisters sing “Scarlet Ribbons”.
Going to Trader Vic’s at the Plaza Hotel just before it closed. Sitting with a friend, I was telling him that my mother made her debut there and that New York lore held it that more debutants lost their virginity in a back booth at Trader Vic’s after their debuts than on their honeymoons. Two older women sitting at the table next to us burst into laughter. Turns out one of them made her debut the same year Mother did - and lost her virginity that same night, though not in the bar…………………….
Father was a noted engineer, a leader in his field back then. He was offered a rather prestigious position in Australia back in the 1960’s. He applied for citizenship and you can not imagine his rage, indignation and actual confusion when he was informed that he was on a waiting list as the quota for Catholics was met for a few years. He actually wrote to Fulton Sheen and talked about it for a year.
In Manhattan, meeting a friend for lunch. I went up to meet her in the literary office where she was temping. While waiting for her to finish a phone call, I took a seat in the waiting room. The guy sitting next to me started a conversation (if memory serves he asked me if I was an author/writer). We chatted and I noted that he had a rather odd, but appealing, sense of humor. Later at lunch I asked my friend who he was. All she knew was that he was a published author and his name was either Stephen King or Richard Bachman – she was a bit confused – but it wasn’t important as no one had ever heard of him………...
When I worked for the airline I used to fly over to London for the weekend frequently – so frequently that the management of the workmen’s bed and breakfast I used to stay at in Gillingham Street suggested that I take the room by the month as it was cheaper (and less work for them) than booking it by the weekend, even if I wasn’t there.
When my eldest younger brother was married I stood up for him. And halfway through the church ceremony I fainted. I fell flat on my face. Got a bloody nose and brought everything to a halt as I am a hemophiliac. They resumed the ceremony and I went off to hospital. Never lived that down and have never been asked to stand up for anyone since.
Being in the Funeral Home business, my family tended to have a sort of macabre sense of humor. I had one brother who was ALWAYS late for every thing. Father used to tell him that we were going to pronounce him Dead on Saturday so we get him Laid Out by Friday……………… and for years when we needed a station wagon for a family outing we borrowed one from one of the Homes – black with gray silk curtains in the windows, it was actually used as a hearse for children’s funerals. That is how we discovered that I get car-sick when riding backwards…………………….
On a British Airways flight from London to NYC we started talking to a guy who was on his first trip to the States, on an art conservancy scholarship in NY. Being the usual know it all New Yorkers, my wife and I were giving him all sorts of advice, name dropping, and being unutterably superior (as only a New Yorker can). Asked him to meet us for dinner that evening. He already had arrangements with his contact at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a certain Caroline Kennedy – did we know her? Funny how you never realize you are being a snob until someone out-snobs you……………….
I took my youngest (16 year old half) brother to Amsterdam for Queen’s Birthday, when they practically suspend civil law (yeah, Heinken for breakfast!). When we returned, his dad asked if he had any photos and if so could he send him one. I believe that my step-dad wanted a photo of my brother and I. What he got was an 8x10 glossy of 23 drunken guys urinating in a canal. And there in the center is my brother - a beer and a doobie in one hand and, well anyway, I wasn’t allowed to take him on any more trips…………….
Many years ago at a family gathering a cousin and I had a laughing fit over something we no longer remember – except that the “punch line” was “Oh, Souza! If you knew Souza like I know Souza…..” For over thirty-five years that line would reduce us to giggling fits. I miss her…………. and Souza.
Playing hooky from work one day, I was wandering around the second floor of the Museum of the City of New York spellbound with the display of antique Tiffany presentation silver. I bumped into someone and turned around to apologize – to Katherine Hepburn. Positively tongue-tied, I said nothing more, just listened to her comments as she pointed out different items and asked me to read some of the smaller title cards.
I was typing the final draft of the first article I was submitting for publication while my 4 year old nephew played quietly in the same room. I was a bundle of nerves – both over the fact that it was taking HOURS as I could not type very well, and over the fact that I kept making revisions as I went along. I got up to do something, and when I returned to the room and sat down at the typewriter to an almost finished page, there were about four “return” lines and 2 typed lines of x’s. I totally lost it, yelling and carrying on like an ass. When I finished my rant and looked from up from slamming a new sheet of paper in the machine my nephew was sitting there with tears running down his face and he choked out “I’m sorry Uncle”. We sat on the floor and cried together until I took us both out for ice cream. The article was rejected.
In NYC during the Big Blackout of 1976, my wife and I were wandering around on the street talking to random people – met an older couple from out of town who looked us up and down and snottily asked if we were going to rob them and then start looting like the rest of the “creeps” in NY. My wife replied “Well, we came out to go looting, but we can’t get a cab up to Tiffany”. We all burst into laughter and wound up taking them home for drinks, dinner and a place to stay. Stayed in touch with them for years.
When my wife and I decided to make our union legal in the early 1970’s, the company I worked for gave it’s employees 2 floating holidays, your birthday and your employment anniversary as a paid day off. In addition, they gave 2 days before your wedding and 2 days after your wedding. I looked at the calendar and low and behold, TWO holidays in February! We could get almost three weeks in Europe and I wouldn’t have to use vacation time. I planned out the dates, arranged for tickets on the Concord and we were going to be off to party in London! We arrived at New York City Hall very early on the morning of the date we were to leave, only to find a scagillion couples already there. Our bohemian mindset totally missed the fact that it was St. Valentine’s Day……………………ugh! For the rest of our marriage everyone thought it was so “cute” and “romantic” that we were married on Valentine’s Day – we thought it revolting…………… and actually lied about it to most people.
Having been given free reign of the library and the books in the attic at a tender age, I still remember the look on my mother’s and father’s faces when at the age of eight I asked them to explain a particularly confusing passage from Cleland’s “Fanny Hill” – and the ruckus it caused because my grandmother overheard my question………….
Out on a drinking binge with a college friend, he had an embarrassing accident (involving a shot glass – the result of a dare) and I had to take him to the emergency room at the local hospital. He was so concerned that his parents would find out (about his stupidity), that he asked me to talk to the desk clerk and arrange some sort of billing or payments. The clerk just stared at me for a minute and said the she had already arranged to bill MY mother – wasn’t he one of my brothers? With seven boys and the (then) wilds of Southwest Florida, Ma needed a charge account at the emergency room…………………and the clerk KNEW I was one of the clan.
My wife and I were sitting in a coffee shop/news stand in South Beach. A guy walked in the door and I thought I recognized him and heard my wife mutter “Who is that? We know him.” He obviously recognized us as well and stopped to make polite small talk. It was also obvious that he couldn’t quite place us either. It wasn’t until a few years later when he was murdered that we figured out that it was Gianni Versace who we had met a number of clubs we used to frequent.
My mother, my sister-in-law, my four year old nephew, and I were leaving a restaurant and stopped to talk to some friends of Mother’s. My nephew was hanging on to my sister-in-law’s leg and kept running his hand up the leg of her shorts. She would unobtrusively as possible push his hand away, but he would slide it right back. Finally she said “Tom, stop that!”……………….. he replied, too loudly for comfort’ “If my daddy can put his hand up there so can I!”………………..
When I graduated Ma insisted we have a gathering. Hating the idea, I would only agree if I could invite ONLY “family”. On Mama’s side there were about sixteen relatives, we were seven boys, her husband had six brothers and one sister, all with families, there were about twenty-two on Papa’s side and his partner was one of thirteen children, all with families. Needless to say, I spent that evening with friends and a keg of beer……………….Ma went to the movies – alone.
One of the only times I remember my mother crying “in public”. She and I were talking about 3 of my deceased brothers and the past. She started to cry (unheard of!). I apologized for bring them up, but she explained that she wasn’t crying over them – she was crying over ME. She went on to relate an incident that happened when I was 5 or 6 years old (I remember the occasion, not the incident). I was the “new kid” to a bunch of locals (who called me a Flatlander) in the Vermont town where we had a house. I really wanted these kids to LIKE ME. We were all running around on the lawn and I went up to Ma, who was sitting on the porch, and asked her if I could share my “special treat” with them. I had an ongoing love affair with Mallowmar cookies. She warned me that they were for my special times, but I insisted on sharing. She brought out the box and I started passing it around (to great jubilation, I might add). When the box came back to me it was stone cold empty. Ma said I just stood there with a quivering upper lip – but I didn’t cry and I didn’t complain. The kids ate the cookies and I just watched. Ma said that even though she had another box stashed away, and it was breaking her heart not to go get it, she thought I was handling it so well that it must be “character building” or some such Dr. Spock drivel. After she told me this story, she apologized. I told her to “get over it”; it was probably one of the things that went into forming my generous nature, even if it is usually to my detriment. Then I told her that she owed me a box of Mallowmars…………….
I remember New York when I was young – “No Spitting” signs on lamp posts, rattan (wicker?) seats in the subway cars (15 cents?); if you wore a tweed suit everyone assumed you were on your way to the country – you NEVER wore tweed in Town; sliced bread from the grocery came wrapped and sealed in waxed paper; going out to “play” Ma would give me a dime to use a pay phone in case I went out of bounds – allowed anywhere in Central Park, but not out on to Central Park West, not past Lexington Ave, no further south than Grand Central Station and no further north than 90th Street (unless I was in the Park – than 109th was OK); taking Ma’s kitchen knives down to the Knife Grinder, who traveled around with a hand cart, to get the knives sharpened; my yearly trip to Roger’s Peet for school clothes, until suddenly it was Brooks Brothers – and low and behold, you could call them and order socks and underwear and shirts and ties, have it delivered, and NEVER have to go into that mausoleum - except for a yearly fitting; taking a cab from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue to get on the IRT – you always told the driver Lex and Twenty –Third so he didn’t think you were a total lazy arse; summers we closed the apartment in town and moved lock, stock and barrel to the country place – a ninety minute train ride (on the LIRR) to the south shore of Long Island – and sometimes from there we would pack the station wagon and drive back west to Massapequa and go camping – where it was mostly still “wilderness” – all within a fifty mile distance from NYC; Ma stood on principle and refused to serve a salad course at dinners when lettuce went up to the unimaginable price of 9 cents a head; we had an “account” with the candy store on the corner – I could charge Grandpa’s cigars, Ma’s Pell Mells, Gram’s Camels (on the sly – no one was supposed to know she smoked so I got Sensen too), Papa’s newspapers, I could even “charge” books or a dime for the pay phone – but I couldn’t charge candy or at the fountain; Checker cabs were so roomy you could change clothes in them – and I frequently did; wearing white gloves to dancing class so you didn’t get sweaty palm prints on the girls’ white dresses – always wondered why the girls didn’t have to wear slippers to protect the boys’ shoes; the dreaded yearly luncheon at the Knickerbocker Club with Grandpa – and the interminable question from the Old Boys – “So son, when are YOU going to become a Knickerbocker Gray?” – I never did; Great-Grandma Belle’s monthly salon where I would sneak a glass of sherry and watch people such as Gloria Swanson, Lillian Roth, Bennet Cerf and the odd politician swill gin. Except Swanson – I think she drank orange or carrot juice.
Coping with my parents divorce and its social and emotional consequences (there was only one “ground” for divorce in 1960’s New York State), dealing with some massive, politically driven family schisms. Grandpa had just died. Gram was pickling herself in the bottom of a Jamison’s bottle. We were going to have to sell the house in Manhattan. The world was falling apart. I had just come home from a particularly bad week at school and I was standing on the back porch. It was hot and blindingly sunny and I could hear the women in the kitchen behind me talking and smell whatever they were baking, the heat brought out the smell of the roses on the trellis and I kept catching a whiff of the sharp smells from the stables and fresh mown grass. And I knew that no matter how bad things got, I could always come home and everything would be all right. Not the same, not the way it was, probably not always happy, but all right.
Coming home from school on Friday night and calling out “Who Am I?” and having Ma answer “You’re Number 3 – only 4 more to go! And don’t slam the door!” as she counted off our arrivals. First one home was allowed to pick dessert for Sunday dinner, after which we all went down to the train station together to go back to our respective schools for another week.
I was helping a friend move into a new apartment in the early 1970’s. Her new roommate walked through the door with her arms full, followed by her friends. The new roommate stopped dead in her tracks and looked me square in the eyes – we stood that way for at least three beats. She broke the mood but set my future when she said “I don’t have time now, and I have a date later, but you and I WILL do it!”
As a young man, at a particularly bad time in my life I moved back to Mother’s for a while. Once in a while she and I would stay up late watching television in silence. Just before Johnny Carson would come on she would say “I feel like a little something to eat – you?” We would creep into the kitchen, super quiet so we wouldn’t wake up the housekeeper, make a splendid mess and pig out on liederkranz with raw onion on pumpernickel and cold beer (peasant food!), while talking and looking for “The Meaning of Life” in Carson’s cheesy suits.
One of the last Christmases all of us boys were home for the holiday. My brother Kevin was trying to convince us that you could not break an egg if you applied extreme pressure to just the ends. Of course the egg shifted in his hands and it literally exploded. I remember the surprised look on his face and the yolk dripping off of his mustache. My youngest brother fell to the floor laughing until he literally wet his pants and of course that set us off to new gales of laughter. We laughed until we ached. Even my usually dour sep-father was collapsed in a chair with tears running down his face. And Ma, who believed in leading by example, made the coupe de grace when she sat down and said “Sh*t, I haven’t laughed like that in years!”. Oh, how I remember the hurt in my side…………………
One weekend in the late 1970’s my wife and I took the sea-plane from Manhattan out to Fire Island to visit a friend for the weekend. I remember getting off the plane and being greeted by Ralph’s houseboy bearing a huge tray of tall, sparkling glasses full of clinking ice and gin and tonic. Garnished with the greenest lime slices I have ever seen. Oh, that was refreshing – I do believe that I’ll have another …………The next full memory we have is that of waking up on the Manhattan bound train on Tuesday afternoon. And for years I have had vague flashbacks of complete and utter decadence and debauchery. And my wife and I never talked about it…………….odd for two people who lived on the edge as a rule and love sharing it………….
After my mother died, we were cleaning out her dressing room. There was a set of boxes in assorted sizes, all embroidered with her mother’s family crest. They were full of gloves and handkerchiefs and lingerie, etc. There was also a piece of linen about 2 feet wide by 6 feet long embroidered with the same pattern. But no one could understand why a dresser scarf would be crafted so that the pattern was “sideways” (portrait as opposed to landscape). I was the only one who remembered back to the day when Ma had a girl to help her dress – and after her clothes were laid out on a chair in preparation for dressing, the girl would drape the “clothes cover” over them until Ma got out of the bath…………….
One Friday night my youngest brother came home from school and announced that his school was having a White Elephant Sale and he had to donate something. He had no idea what a White Elephant was so we explained that it was something that was usually coveted, most likely decorative, definitely admired and very expensive to maintain. He thought for a minute and said “Too bad we threw out the box the refrigerator came in. Mom would fit in that wouldn’t she?”
During one very long week of school break all seven of us boys were home. It rained non-stop. By day five there was crying and whining. And non-stop cries of “Mom! Mommy, Mom!” And Our Lady of Serenity, otherwise known as Mommy, totally lost it and practically screamed “Don’t call me Mommy! Call me Sam or Dan or Myrtle, don’t call me Mommy!” From then until 24 hours before she died I called her Sam in all of our “private” moments…..
Sunday dinner – (maternal) Grandfather would get up from the table after the soup and slip into the pantry. He would come back bearing a huge platter with either a roast of beef or a (highly aromatic) haunch of venison sauerbraten. In a very thick and exaggerated German accent he would expound on how long it took him to cook that meat and the exact process he employed. And we would all giggle because we could hear the housekeeper in the pantry saying that the closest “that man” ever came to the kitchen was to dump his day’s dead and bloody catch on her nice clean floor and expect her to cook it up. And Grandfather would “admit” that the process he actually used was to “kiss the cook and tickle her chin” so she would give us nice, rare beef. I listened to that routine for 15 years, week in and week out…………I stopped being amused after about year 6, but now I smile, and even giggle a bit………………
An evening at the hotel bar at the Hotel Pulitzer in Amsterdam. The bar tender (Mario?), made the best, driest, coldest gin martinis east of the Oak Bar. When I hit number 20 he declared that I had the record for “most drunk and still standing”. Five years later I returned with my father after telling him that this was probably the best hotel bar in Europe. We sat down and the bartender glanced at us and walked off to the other end of the bar. Just as Papa was beginning to complain that the service was certainly NOT the best in Europe, the bartender (Mauricio?) came back, placed a martini in front of me, greeted me by name and asked my father what he wished to drink.
The only time I remember my mother slapping me – I publically told a male member of one of New York’s 400 that he was just a parvenu, not Old Family, like some of us. Ma couldn’t bear snobbery. Some years later that same guy went out a window while his mother and brother were in the room. That slap still stings.
Shortly after being appointed to an executive position at the airline I worked for I proved that I was NOT yet executive material. Without realizing that the conference room was already fully populated by fellow executives of both genders, not only my boss, I barged in announcing “Jes&& H. Chr&&, this room is as hot as a crotch”! I stood there open mouthed, wishing the floor would open and swallow me up, until my boss said “Did you have a particular crotch in mind, or are you speaking in generic terms? Do you recommend forming a committee to investigate?” Immediate, if slightly uncomfortable, laughter. I would have died for that man ……………
First time I brought my future wife home to a family dinner (and a completely different way of life). The conversation was about whom at the table was left-handed versus right-handed. My brother had just finished explaining that he could use either hand with equal dexterity. My (future) wife, who was equally dexterous, blurted out “I’m bi-sexual too!” She claims it was simple confusion on her part, but since ambidextrous and bi-sexual don’t even sound alike, I have always suspected that she did it on purpose – maybe to see if my Grandmother was actually capable of smiling?
?My 16th birthday, commonly referred to as the Sterling Year. Next to my breakfast plate were an even dozen wrapped gifts instead of the usual card. A cigarette case and lighter, a cigar cutter, a card case (and 1,000 calling cards), a hip flask, a key chain with a monogrammed fob (and house keys and a key to the station wagon), a set of shirt studs and cufflinks, an insignia ring, a Dunhill pen and Pencil set, and more. All sterling – all signifying that in my family I was “officially in training” to become a gentleman, when the sterling should be replaced with 18k if I had learned to use all of those accoutrements responsibly and as intended.
Watching a PBS programme about festivals around the world. Just as I was getting one of my ridiculous urges to act like an irresponsible teenager, even though I was in my forties at the time, my phone rang. A colleague from the airline I worked for had been watching the same programme and had the same thought. Two days later I was impersonating a bottle of catsup at the Tomatina in Bunol.
My first riding lesson. I thought I knew it all; after all it is JUST a horse. Ran over, shoved my right foot into the stirrup and as I swung my leg up I realized that I was backwards. Trying to get my leg back down I kicked the mount and he dragged me completely around the ring. Twice. Remembering the laughter and the raw spots on the back of my arse and my head I now think twice before I even get in a car……………..
Moving into my first apartment with a mattress, a desk and some empty milk crates as the only furnishings. Anxiously awaiting the first visits of my parents and their respective “others” to see how they were going to help me out. An antique Haviland dinner service for 12, plate flatware for 12, and some really fine linens. And me literally without a pot to cook in ……………….
Sleeping on the sitting room floor because I came home after 11:00 PM when we were under Mother’s “Any Empty Bed Is Fair Game” edict on weekends when she took in battered women, visiting students, a cousin and his buddies stationed at Key West Naval base, a friend of a friend of a third cousin once removed who showed up at the door with a letter of introduction, or even once an entire Glee Club that was in town for a GRAMMER school competition.
Being presented to the sister (a princess) of a reigning Queen and being so flummoxed that I curtsied – not bowed, CURTISIED! I cringe just typing that.
I spent a few years in utter confusion over my father’s reaction when I refused to enter the military. Every male (and many females) in our family had served since the American Revolution. He told me that I was a disgrace and that no one in our family would ever do anything so unconventional and dishonorable. This from a man who got a New York State divorce in the 1960’s and promptly moved into a COMPLETELY unconventional and controversial relationship that lasted 35 years.
Completely broke, nothing to eat, no income due for at least a week and too proud (and ashamed) to ask family for help. Thinking I may be able to get a few bucks for it at hock, I took down my Grandfather’s copy of “Le Collier de la Reine” by Dumas Pere. Flipping through the pages to check the condition I came upon a twenty dollar bill. I ate for a three days on that $20.
Sunday evenings when the help was off, Ma would make “chafing dish” food and set it up on the coffee table in the lounge and the entire family would sit on the floor to eat and watch The Wonderful World of Disney and Ed Sullivan. I now get teary eyed when ever I hear the Lennon Sisters sing “Scarlet Ribbons”.
Going to Trader Vic’s at the Plaza Hotel just before it closed. Sitting with a friend, I was telling him that my mother made her debut there and that New York lore held it that more debutants lost their virginity in a back booth at Trader Vic’s after their debuts than on their honeymoons. Two older women sitting at the table next to us burst into laughter. Turns out one of them made her debut the same year Mother did - and lost her virginity that same night, though not in the bar…………………….
Father was a noted engineer, a leader in his field back then. He was offered a rather prestigious position in Australia back in the 1960’s. He applied for citizenship and you can not imagine his rage, indignation and actual confusion when he was informed that he was on a waiting list as the quota for Catholics was met for a few years. He actually wrote to Fulton Sheen and talked about it for a year.
In Manhattan, meeting a friend for lunch. I went up to meet her in the literary office where she was temping. While waiting for her to finish a phone call, I took a seat in the waiting room. The guy sitting next to me started a conversation (if memory serves he asked me if I was an author/writer). We chatted and I noted that he had a rather odd, but appealing, sense of humor. Later at lunch I asked my friend who he was. All she knew was that he was a published author and his name was either Stephen King or Richard Bachman – she was a bit confused – but it wasn’t important as no one had ever heard of him………...
When I worked for the airline I used to fly over to London for the weekend frequently – so frequently that the management of the workmen’s bed and breakfast I used to stay at in Gillingham Street suggested that I take the room by the month as it was cheaper (and less work for them) than booking it by the weekend, even if I wasn’t there.
When my eldest younger brother was married I stood up for him. And halfway through the church ceremony I fainted. I fell flat on my face. Got a bloody nose and brought everything to a halt as I am a hemophiliac. They resumed the ceremony and I went off to hospital. Never lived that down and have never been asked to stand up for anyone since.
Being in the Funeral Home business, my family tended to have a sort of macabre sense of humor. I had one brother who was ALWAYS late for every thing. Father used to tell him that we were going to pronounce him Dead on Saturday so we get him Laid Out by Friday……………… and for years when we needed a station wagon for a family outing we borrowed one from one of the Homes – black with gray silk curtains in the windows, it was actually used as a hearse for children’s funerals. That is how we discovered that I get car-sick when riding backwards…………………….
On a British Airways flight from London to NYC we started talking to a guy who was on his first trip to the States, on an art conservancy scholarship in NY. Being the usual know it all New Yorkers, my wife and I were giving him all sorts of advice, name dropping, and being unutterably superior (as only a New Yorker can). Asked him to meet us for dinner that evening. He already had arrangements with his contact at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a certain Caroline Kennedy – did we know her? Funny how you never realize you are being a snob until someone out-snobs you……………….
I took my youngest (16 year old half) brother to Amsterdam for Queen’s Birthday, when they practically suspend civil law (yeah, Heinken for breakfast!). When we returned, his dad asked if he had any photos and if so could he send him one. I believe that my step-dad wanted a photo of my brother and I. What he got was an 8x10 glossy of 23 drunken guys urinating in a canal. And there in the center is my brother - a beer and a doobie in one hand and, well anyway, I wasn’t allowed to take him on any more trips…………….
Many years ago at a family gathering a cousin and I had a laughing fit over something we no longer remember – except that the “punch line” was “Oh, Souza! If you knew Souza like I know Souza…..” For over thirty-five years that line would reduce us to giggling fits. I miss her…………. and Souza.
Playing hooky from work one day, I was wandering around the second floor of the Museum of the City of New York spellbound with the display of antique Tiffany presentation silver. I bumped into someone and turned around to apologize – to Katherine Hepburn. Positively tongue-tied, I said nothing more, just listened to her comments as she pointed out different items and asked me to read some of the smaller title cards.
I was typing the final draft of the first article I was submitting for publication while my 4 year old nephew played quietly in the same room. I was a bundle of nerves – both over the fact that it was taking HOURS as I could not type very well, and over the fact that I kept making revisions as I went along. I got up to do something, and when I returned to the room and sat down at the typewriter to an almost finished page, there were about four “return” lines and 2 typed lines of x’s. I totally lost it, yelling and carrying on like an ass. When I finished my rant and looked from up from slamming a new sheet of paper in the machine my nephew was sitting there with tears running down his face and he choked out “I’m sorry Uncle”. We sat on the floor and cried together until I took us both out for ice cream. The article was rejected.
In NYC during the Big Blackout of 1976, my wife and I were wandering around on the street talking to random people – met an older couple from out of town who looked us up and down and snottily asked if we were going to rob them and then start looting like the rest of the “creeps” in NY. My wife replied “Well, we came out to go looting, but we can’t get a cab up to Tiffany”. We all burst into laughter and wound up taking them home for drinks, dinner and a place to stay. Stayed in touch with them for years.
When my wife and I decided to make our union legal in the early 1970’s, the company I worked for gave it’s employees 2 floating holidays, your birthday and your employment anniversary as a paid day off. In addition, they gave 2 days before your wedding and 2 days after your wedding. I looked at the calendar and low and behold, TWO holidays in February! We could get almost three weeks in Europe and I wouldn’t have to use vacation time. I planned out the dates, arranged for tickets on the Concord and we were going to be off to party in London! We arrived at New York City Hall very early on the morning of the date we were to leave, only to find a scagillion couples already there. Our bohemian mindset totally missed the fact that it was St. Valentine’s Day……………………ugh! For the rest of our marriage everyone thought it was so “cute” and “romantic” that we were married on Valentine’s Day – we thought it revolting…………… and actually lied about it to most people.
Having been given free reign of the library and the books in the attic at a tender age, I still remember the look on my mother’s and father’s faces when at the age of eight I asked them to explain a particularly confusing passage from Cleland’s “Fanny Hill” – and the ruckus it caused because my grandmother overheard my question………….
Out on a drinking binge with a college friend, he had an embarrassing accident (involving a shot glass – the result of a dare) and I had to take him to the emergency room at the local hospital. He was so concerned that his parents would find out (about his stupidity), that he asked me to talk to the desk clerk and arrange some sort of billing or payments. The clerk just stared at me for a minute and said the she had already arranged to bill MY mother – wasn’t he one of my brothers? With seven boys and the (then) wilds of Southwest Florida, Ma needed a charge account at the emergency room…………………and the clerk KNEW I was one of the clan.
My wife and I were sitting in a coffee shop/news stand in South Beach. A guy walked in the door and I thought I recognized him and heard my wife mutter “Who is that? We know him.” He obviously recognized us as well and stopped to make polite small talk. It was also obvious that he couldn’t quite place us either. It wasn’t until a few years later when he was murdered that we figured out that it was Gianni Versace who we had met a number of clubs we used to frequent.
My mother, my sister-in-law, my four year old nephew, and I were leaving a restaurant and stopped to talk to some friends of Mother’s. My nephew was hanging on to my sister-in-law’s leg and kept running his hand up the leg of her shorts. She would unobtrusively as possible push his hand away, but he would slide it right back. Finally she said “Tom, stop that!”……………….. he replied, too loudly for comfort’ “If my daddy can put his hand up there so can I!”………………..
When I graduated Ma insisted we have a gathering. Hating the idea, I would only agree if I could invite ONLY “family”. On Mama’s side there were about sixteen relatives, we were seven boys, her husband had six brothers and one sister, all with families, there were about twenty-two on Papa’s side and his partner was one of thirteen children, all with families. Needless to say, I spent that evening with friends and a keg of beer……………….Ma went to the movies – alone.
One of the only times I remember my mother crying “in public”. She and I were talking about 3 of my deceased brothers and the past. She started to cry (unheard of!). I apologized for bring them up, but she explained that she wasn’t crying over them – she was crying over ME. She went on to relate an incident that happened when I was 5 or 6 years old (I remember the occasion, not the incident). I was the “new kid” to a bunch of locals (who called me a Flatlander) in the Vermont town where we had a house. I really wanted these kids to LIKE ME. We were all running around on the lawn and I went up to Ma, who was sitting on the porch, and asked her if I could share my “special treat” with them. I had an ongoing love affair with Mallowmar cookies. She warned me that they were for my special times, but I insisted on sharing. She brought out the box and I started passing it around (to great jubilation, I might add). When the box came back to me it was stone cold empty. Ma said I just stood there with a quivering upper lip – but I didn’t cry and I didn’t complain. The kids ate the cookies and I just watched. Ma said that even though she had another box stashed away, and it was breaking her heart not to go get it, she thought I was handling it so well that it must be “character building” or some such Dr. Spock drivel. After she told me this story, she apologized. I told her to “get over it”; it was probably one of the things that went into forming my generous nature, even if it is usually to my detriment. Then I told her that she owed me a box of Mallowmars…………….
I remember New York when I was young – “No Spitting” signs on lamp posts, rattan (wicker?) seats in the subway cars (15 cents?); if you wore a tweed suit everyone assumed you were on your way to the country – you NEVER wore tweed in Town; sliced bread from the grocery came wrapped and sealed in waxed paper; going out to “play” Ma would give me a dime to use a pay phone in case I went out of bounds – allowed anywhere in Central Park, but not out on to Central Park West, not past Lexington Ave, no further south than Grand Central Station and no further north than 90th Street (unless I was in the Park – than 109th was OK); taking Ma’s kitchen knives down to the Knife Grinder, who traveled around with a hand cart, to get the knives sharpened; my yearly trip to Roger’s Peet for school clothes, until suddenly it was Brooks Brothers – and low and behold, you could call them and order socks and underwear and shirts and ties, have it delivered, and NEVER have to go into that mausoleum - except for a yearly fitting; taking a cab from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue to get on the IRT – you always told the driver Lex and Twenty –Third so he didn’t think you were a total lazy arse; summers we closed the apartment in town and moved lock, stock and barrel to the country place – a ninety minute train ride (on the LIRR) to the south shore of Long Island – and sometimes from there we would pack the station wagon and drive back west to Massapequa and go camping – where it was mostly still “wilderness” – all within a fifty mile distance from NYC; Ma stood on principle and refused to serve a salad course at dinners when lettuce went up to the unimaginable price of 9 cents a head; we had an “account” with the candy store on the corner – I could charge Grandpa’s cigars, Ma’s Pell Mells, Gram’s Camels (on the sly – no one was supposed to know she smoked so I got Sensen too), Papa’s newspapers, I could even “charge” books or a dime for the pay phone – but I couldn’t charge candy or at the fountain; Checker cabs were so roomy you could change clothes in them – and I frequently did; wearing white gloves to dancing class so you didn’t get sweaty palm prints on the girls’ white dresses – always wondered why the girls didn’t have to wear slippers to protect the boys’ shoes; the dreaded yearly luncheon at the Knickerbocker Club with Grandpa – and the interminable question from the Old Boys – “So son, when are YOU going to become a Knickerbocker Gray?” – I never did; Great-Grandma Belle’s monthly salon where I would sneak a glass of sherry and watch people such as Gloria Swanson, Lillian Roth, Bennet Cerf and the odd politician swill gin. Except Swanson – I think she drank orange or carrot juice.
