Jack Wiler's World

The Unseen World

2009-09-22T07:16:00.000-04:00

In Eighth grade my father decided Mick and I needed a room of our own. So that summer, well, that August, he labored mightily to renovate our attic into a bedroom. My dad wasn’t the handiest guy on the planet but he made a closet out of window shutters and we spackled and painted and soon Mick and I were settled in our new room. It was a nice big room, the biggest in the house, and it would become a sanctum over the years for good behavior and bad.

Mick and I had shared a room before when we were young. That never went well. We spent most of our time fighting and as it happens Mick periodically walked in his sleep. I remember one fine night when he took a whiz in our closet, mistaking it for the bathroom a few feet away. This time things went better. No fights. No petty bickering. Maybe we were growing up.

Now our house was an old house. It was built in 1888 and it had its peculiarities. It made noises at night when it settled and it had the odd shadow that seemed out of place. We didn’t know much about the people who’d lived there before us except for the family that we replaced, the Sacca’s. We knew them because they lived two doors down and Peggy Sacca walked me to school that first day of first grade. We also knew them by the charcoal graffiti in the attic (before we painted). I particularly remember one little note: “Peggy Sacca says her mom smokes cigarettes”. A damning note to say the least.

At any event a few weeks into our tenure on a stormy Fall night (well, maybe not stormy) Mick and I were talking when from out of nowhere an object in the middle of our dresser slid two feet and dropped off the dresser. You heard me. It just slid to the edge of the dresser and then it fell off. No minor earthquake, no truck rumbling through, no kid brother behind the dresser tipping it. So we naturally assumed it had to be a poltergeist. Or a ghost.

In any event Mick picked up his blanket and pillow and went downstairs to my old room at the foot of the attic stairs, never to return. I stayed. It was my bedroom, except when I was away at college, till 1974. Me, the ghost, and the graffiti.

Friendship and it's vagaries

2009-09-14T14:52:00.002-04:00

The Gateway years mark the beginning of my slow inexorable slide into being a complete non-entity. In Wenonah, while I may have been picked on occasionally, I still had a certain presence and friends who I'd known for many years. High school however completely confounded me. I was unable to find a persona that worked. It seemed to me that all my friends were able to change, to grow up, to be a cool person. Having worked with high school kids for many years now I know that I was wrong on at least that count. The odds are that every one of my friends and acquaintances felt as goony as I did. The difference was that they felt goony with cool kids and I felt goony all alone.
I've always been a big reader and this isolation made me a bigger reader. Books were a place I could go to and imagine myself as someone different. A brave soldier, or a lawyer fighting for the common man, or a wilderness scout in the 1800's. Anything other than a kid in corduroy pants, a plaid long sleeve shirt, and two giant cowlicks. The only thing I was spared was pimples. Thank God for small favors.
My cool friends would hang out with me now and again and in class kids I admired would talk with me and listen to me but once that was done I was back to geekdom. Me, Jim Maddox, Grant Karsner, and Bruce Zahn sitting at the cafeteria table just hoping nothing bad would happen to us for the next twenty minutes.
Meanwhile kids were walking around wearing desert boots and jeff caps and Beetle jackets and had cool dress shirts with fairy loops. Not this boy. We were still shopping in Pitman for clothes and Pitman was anything but cool so you can imagine a men's store in Pitman would be the antithesis of cool.
Eighth Grade! Five long years stretched out in front of me till I could go away to college and ditch these losers. It seemed like my life was to be an eternal torment and that was not a bad prediction at least for the forseeable future.

APBA Baseball

2009-08-26T13:55:00.002-04:00

One thing I hate about this blog is the early sixties. Stuff is mixed up in my head time wise and I don't have a way to anchor it to a year or a class. Things extend between years, pop up again and vanish. Boy Scouts, for instance, were part of my life at two very different occasions in the sixties. The same is true of APBA sports games.
ABPA is a game much like Strat-o-matic. Each is a combination of dice, player cards, and result boards. Each game has demented enthusiasts. In Wenonah my neighborhood was filled with APBA Baseball and later football, basketball, and golf enthusiasts. Terry and Chris were the first to purchase games and soon all of us had one. The games were played either in Terry's basement or my front porch.
We were deadly serious about the game. We played full seasons, used real score books and kept detailed statistics. There were leaders in HR's, batting average, and ERA. Just like the big boys. Terry had the Yankees and my team was the Reds, Gary Condell loved the Cardinals and Mick the Pirates. We'd sit for hours in Terry's basement rolling dice and yelling cheers, all the while listening to Mary Flemings collection of show tunes and Frank Sinatra 45's.
We were surrounded by Doc Flemings Yankee memorabilia and bar supplies and the air was damp basement air. The kids who weren't playing were playing the slot machine.
The competition was fierce although it seems the Yankees always won...just as they did in real life. Later we bought into old time teams. I had the 1940 Cincinnati Reds and Terry had the 27 Yankees. He won game after game after game. Every player on his team was light years better than any other player on any other team. Babe Ruth hit a homer every other at bat. It was hopeless.
Once again I was a loser. I had lots of company but the Reds weren't really all that good. I loved them and wanted them to be good but the numbers didn't lie...they were not a championship team vs any other team. Had I known that in the 70's the Big Red Machine would rear its head I would have given any thing to travel into the future and come back with those cards. No more block of k after k after k. I'd be a winner and they'd all be losers. Fat chance. I was stuck in 1965 in a basement getting crushed day after day after day by better players, better strategists, and cooler kids. I was a loser.

An Apology

2009-08-23T15:38:00.001-04:00

Many (well two) people have been asking when I would post again. They apparently were sick of the trestle. To all of you bored people I apologize. I'm undergoing treatment for Hepatitis C which requires me to take a chemo therapy drug every week. It sucks the life out of you. I don't care about food or sex and I can't come up with an idea to save my ass. So bear with me. This too shall pass and we can leap back with abandon into the heady days of the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five and Lyndon Baines Johnson and Vietnam. Life stretches out before us.

Pavlov's Jack

2009-08-23T15:27:00.002-04:00

As you'll no doubt remember I washed out of Boy Scouts (literally) because I wet the bed. That was when I was eleven. I continued to do so till I was fourteen. I think that puts me in eighth grade but even if it doesn't I'm thinking about it so in it goes.

My parents took me to many doctors over the years trying to figure out why I peed myself at night. Shrinks, urologists, you name it. They also never really told me why we were talking to these folks. I was dragged from health care center to health care center and I still woke up in a sea of piss every morning.

Then one day my parents brought home a new device. It consisted of a rubber pad that went under my sheets and an electronic device. The device worked thus: when liquids hit the pad it triggered an electric signal that rang a loud bell. A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY LOUD BELL!!!!

No one explained to me how it actually worked except to show me the bell going off and setting things up and sending me to bed.

That night I slept like a baby, pissed myself and MARY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT IS THAT BELL, WHY IS IT RINGING, WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE LORD IS THIS SHIT.

I peed again the next night and I think the next two nights but then a miracle happened. Right before I had to piss I woke up and went downstairs and pissed in the toilet. I didn't wet the bed. And I didn't wet the bed ever again.

I thought at the time this was a miracle. I still do for the most part. But I've since learned about Pavlov's dog and I realize I was a Pavlovian dog. I heard the bell before I peed and woke up and went downstairs.

This was good because I didn't wet the bed. It was bad because I hate bells. I have to pick up a phone on the first ring if not sooner. Loud noises freak me out. Oh, and I don't like to piss or shit in any place other than a toilet or the wilderness (or pee in a back yard late at night when I'm drunk and happy). This was a real liability when I became ill with AIDS because pissing and shitting yourself are kind of day to day possibilities.

But that is for a post much, much later. For now I'm in eighth grade and my sheets are dry and the bell is muffled.

Crossing the Trestle

2009-07-12T14:39:00.003-04:00

I should mention that several years ago at a poetry reading in Warren County I ran into an old poetry associate, Charles Johnson. I had just finished my reading and one of the poems mentioned the tracks and the trestle. Charles walked up to me and said "I crossed that trestle". I was surprised and asked what he meant. He told me he'd taken the walk down the tracks and crossed the railroad trestle. Just as my friends and I and generations of kids had done over the years.

The difference is that Charles was from Haddon Heights or Jericho and he was black and for a young man from Jericho to cross that trestle in the early sixties was far braver than any other little kid worrying about trains.

There were real threats if he walked through Wenonah and the threats were the people. They're talking about finally building the light rail from Philly to Glassboro through Wenonah using the old rail bed again. As usual the anti light rail group is worried about black and spanish folks getting off in Wenonah. As though any black kid would want to get off in Wenonah. As if they wouldn't get escorted to the town line and sent home. Some things never change.

So my congratulations to my brave friend and to all my friends who helped walk that line. Don't forget there is still a line. Watch each others back.

The Trestle & The Pill Factory

2009-07-10T12:16:00.003-04:00

In eighth grade we began to expand our geographic horizons. We moved further afield from the woods by Clay Hill, venturing past the Lentz's house all the way to the railroad trestle. This hike required we cross a huge downed tree and it passed an area of the creek where you might actually be able to swim. There was one home with a huge German Shepherd that you would have to sneak by. The trail ended up in an area we called Boy Scout Island. It wasn't an island but occasionally the different scout troops would do overnights there. Just past Boy Scout Island was the trestle. The trestle was huge and loomed far over our heads. The creek itself had it's only "white water" as it rolled over rocks from the construction of the trestle.
We'd scale the trestle from the bottom or simply walk up the sides and then venture out on the trestle itself. None of us knew when a train might come so this was initially terrifying. We later learned we could move off to a side area of the trestle and wait till a train passed if we were trapped in the middle when one came through. But in the beginning we were too stupid to figure this out.
After spending a beautiful Fall afternoon dodging death we'd walk down the tracks throwing rocks at the telegraph wires to hear the weird sounds they'd make. A high whine. After a bit we'd drop down the grade and pass by the Pill Factory. By the time we were kids the Pill Factory was abandoned but for years it had been one of the few industries in Wenonah. Now it was a scary abandoned white building. As I recall we were too frightened to go inside but I could be wrong.
We'd end up by the Mecholsky's and then back home. Another day of artificially induced terror and adventure. Four or six or eight teenagers lost in their own little world.

The Glorious 4th

2009-07-03T18:03:00.001-04:00

Okay, I'm sick as a dog, I feel like shit but come hell or high water I'll be at the corner of S. Lincoln & W. Mantua Ave when the three one minute blasts go off. Keep in mind I'm giving up the Macy's fireworks in the Hudson.

Seriously there is no better 4th of July in all the world like Wenonah's!

See you there.

Me & Mick and Foreign Tongues

2009-06-25T14:21:00.001-04:00

1965 was also the year my brother Mick entered Gateway. As you know from reading this blog Mick and I had a serious sibling rivalry. His entry into Gateway would not make things better.

When we were young we appeared to be polar opposites. I was a bookworm who tried but failed at sports. Mick was good at sports and had his struggles in school. Oh, Mick was also attractive to young teenage girls and could talk with them while I wasn’t attractive and was petrified when in their presence. This dichotomy put us in many awkward situations.

As you’ll recall my parents weren’t very good at academic coaching. This worked out fine with me because I’d muddle through somehow and get good grades. With Mick it was a trial for all. They’d try all kinds of strategies to help him get better grades. They’d sit with him at the dining room table and go over his math. They’d send him to summer school. And best of all they bought him the ALM records for learning Spanish.

In Gateway in the sixties we learned foreign languages by listening to records and repeating what was said. Classes were assigned a foreign language and mine was French. Mick’s was Spanish. If I could write in French I’d write out my favorite phrase from our first year. Remember, these were records so they weren’t always perfect. This particular record had a flaw so it slowed down when it came to this one phrase and went from normal to very deep and slow. We’d laugh every time we heard it.

But getting back to Mick; he listened to his records every night for weeks. I don’t know if it ever helped him but I learned “Hola Isabel, como esta?” right away. Then I had to listen to it seemingly forever.

I took French for two years. I couldn’t say anything in French at the end of those two years. I couldn’t read French at the end of those two years but somehow I got an okay grade.

Mick did the same. Except for the good grade part. Although he did better in Spanish than in his other classes.

When I look back at this it seems there was some profiling going on. First we were all put in classes with kids with similar grades. Then we were assigned different languages. Kids with poorer grades got Spanish. Kids with better grades French. French was a high class language while Spanish was spoken by Mexicans and immigrant laborers in Buena.

Finally I got a good grade just for muddling through and Mick a poor grade for the same effort and understanding. Merde!

Pedaling for Dollars

2009-06-09T14:23:00.001-04:00

A paper route is not just a job. It’s an adventure and not a good one. At least I picked the Bulletin for my route. This meant I worked after school, ate dinner, did homework all like a normal kid except for the work part. My brother Ted was dumb enough to be an Inquirer paperboy. That meant getting up at 5am. No way I was getting up at 5am.
The main bad part of a paper route was collecting money. Adults have a lot of trouble saying no when other adults ask them for money they owe them. Especially if it’s fifty cents. But for some reason they had no qualms saying no to us. Not just once, repeatedly, till you got sick of asking them. Finally they’d cancel owing, like, ten dollars and leave a 13 year old holding the bag. You had to go back to “the man” and tell him and he’d read you the riot act. Would he help you talk to the asshole who wouldn’t pay you? No way, Jose. You were on your own. A miniature collection agency with no muscle behind you.
Sometimes it was funny when they didn’t pay you. They’d hide from you. You could see they were in the house but they wouldn’t answer the door. That was really pathetic.
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Better Off Dead” and you were a paperboy you know that movie was the revenge fantasy for every kid everywhere. “Give me my two dollars”.
Ideally people would tip you but this was a Methodist town and they watched their pennies and I was a lazy, indifferent paperboy so the tips were meager...even at Christmas.
There was a good side to collecting money too and that was you got to go to peoples houses and often young women answered the door. Maybe it was the woman of the house, say, a hot 22 year old or maybe it was a girl a few years older than you. You would ring the bell and they’d answer and you’d just stare for a long, long, long minute like an idiot. Stunned. Unable to speak. Eventually you’d squeak out that you were collecting but in between was lingerie or tight blouses and jeans or shorts or long hair or red, red lips and that was the best part of being a paperboy.
Actually being a paperboy was good preparation for being a poet. You got to see the inner lives of people and you rarely made money. Perfect.

Paper Route Redux

2009-06-08T14:01:00.000-04:00

I could be wrong but I believe 1965 is the year I got tricked into a paper route all over again. Not only a paper route but a bigger, harder, more complicated paper route. This kid in town, Bob Cocozza, approached me and asked if I’d like to take over his route. I’d need a bike with a basket because this was a Philadelphia Evening Bulletin route with over 50 customers. He said I could make a lot of money. He was a year or so older than me so I believed him.

I went to my Dad and told him all about the route. How much money I’d make, the responsibility it would teach me, etc. Basically all the bullshit parents want to hear and kids know they want to hear so they buy into it. Everyone involves knows it’s a lie but they want to believe. In its simplest form this usually results in Mom walking a dog at 6am every morning in the rain. In my case it had no real hardship for my Dad. Only me, only me.

My Dad wouldn’t buy me a bike however. He said if I wanted a bike he’d buy it and I’d have to pay him back. It was the first of thousands of times in my life to come where I made an insane calculation and told him I could do it. So off we went to Woodbury to the bike store. Both Mick and I bought bikes. Mine was a red Schwinn Typhoon. Basically a hunk of iron with a foot brake and one gear. Since Wenonah was largely flat this wasn’t a real problem.

We bought a basket as well and I was off to the races. For two weeks I shadowed Bob and learned the route. Every afternoon after school we’d drive to the Earnhardts and pick up our papers. We’d wrap them in rubber bands, put them in our bags, then in our baskets and off we’d ride. Bob’s route covered primarily the south side of Wenonah. He had customers on both the east and west sides of the railroad tracks but there were a lot of them.

After our first week Friday rolled around. Friday was collection day. This was the day we got off our bikes and walked up to the doors of the customers to ask for the meager amount the weeks worth of papers cost. Your collection money would pay for your cost of the papers and provide you with a profit. That profit depended on everyone paying. Therein lay the rub. They didn’t all pay. So there you’d be Saturday morning driving around hitting up customers again before you went to see “the man”.

This was a guy in his thirties or so who serviced the routes. Nowadays he’d be the sadsack driving around with the papers in his mini van with his wife at 5am but back then he got to be a sadist with an army of minions. Besides badgering you constantly for money he weaseled you into being a circulation agent. Contests would be formed for you to grow your route. You’d ride around with an extra twenty papers to distribute to new potential customers. After they’d gotten a free paper for a week how could they tell a thirteen year old boy they didn’t want the paper? How indeed? Let’s keep in mind there were only x number of houses in Wenonah so all these people had been hit up by generations of bike riding paperboys. They were cold hearted monsters and they weren’t buying our spiels.

Or at least not mine. My friend Don Adams and later my brother Ted used superior customer service to expand their base and improve their bottom line. I did not. I used lazy paperboy skills coupled with zero follow through to shrink my route and my bottom line. I was no better at this shit now than I had been when I was younger. Just bigger.

There were benefits to being a paperboy however. More about that in my next post.

Building a Library Builds Character

2009-05-22T13:47:00.002-04:00

Teachers and parents spend a lot of time trying to “improve” children. In the sixties in grammar school one of their tactics was the Arrow Book Club or Scholastic Book Club. Each month we’d get a newsletter with different books and we would take them home and show our mothers and then buy one or two. Then we’d do book reports on them. “Encyclopedia Brown”, “Homer Price”, and many others.
In Junior and Senior High School we were introduced to the Bookmobile. This was a trailer filled with bookshelves and books. We would be given time each day for several days to visit the bookmobile and select books and purchase them. The selection was more sophisticated than in grammar school and the reading levels ran the gamut.
For me and my friends this was a chance to buy books on war. History books, war story books, anything with Nazi’s and bombs would do. Our other obsession was science fiction. This was one place I was allowed to purchase whatever I wanted. I just asked my mom for money at the beginning of the week and we were off to the races.
Since we were becoming young adults we were now being permitted to choose our own books for book reports. Bruce Catton’s Civil War books, Shirer’s Hitler, and a million other books on WWII. We read Heinlein and LeGuin and Bradbury and in general tried to find the coolest book to report on in class so we’d look cool.
Of course this was a serious error since only eggheads think reading is cool. But there we were, at the front of the class reading our reports on illustrated men and the battle of Midway and D-Day and robots.
We were reading…that was good. But we were still separating ourselves from everyone else. We were on a slippery slope to meaninglessness and didn’t even know it. By the time we woke up to see what we had done it was too late. Being smart wasn’t a skill set you needed in 1965. Nobody sent us the memo though so we went on raising our hands and buying our books and trying to out know it all each other. This is a habit that persists in me to this day. Perhaps it’s no accident that in my office my nickname is Encyclopedia Jack.

Avalon Hill and the World at War

2009-05-09T10:13:00.001-04:00

In 8^th grade I fell totally and completely into the role of geek and egghead. I hung around with the weirdo’s in my class, I read books even more than before if that’s possible, and I began playing extraordinarily complicated board games. Principal among these were the games put out by Avalon Hill.

These games were simulations of historical battles (with one exception) such as D-Day, the battle for North Africa (Afrika Korps), Guadalcanal, and the Battle of the Bulge among many. You used small cardboard squares that represented some military unit such as a brigade or a division and moved them on a hexagonal grid superimposed on the map of the battle in question. Each game had slightly different rules to address geographic and supply issues but once you learned one the others were easy to master.

Battles were fought and won with the roll of a die using a chart to determine the outcome.

A single game might take a week or more to play and this, along with the complexity of the games and their attempt to simulate reality made them geek heaven. We would play for hours and hours. Pale, pasty, greasy haired eggheads sitting around a card table discussing the arcane realities of battles that were twenty years old. Could the New Jersey beat the Bismarck? Should you play 1914 using the original line of march or choose your own innovative strategy? And then there was Blitzkrieg which wasn’t an historical battle but an attempt to simulate a wide ranging war across a modern Europe using today’s weaponry.

That meant atom bombs were on the table. Of course the game ended way to quickly if you used the nuclear option.

This was not a recipe for socialization. We learned no people skills other than how to trick people into doing something they shouldn’t by lying. No girls played these games. No athletes played these games. No greasers played these games. Just kids with good grades and few friends who had nothing better to do than sit around for hours playing at war. Frittering away our adolescence. Squandering our youth. Behaving like any other kid with a Play Station or an Xbox blasting away at aliens. Had we an Xbox we would never have picked up those cardboard squares but geeks use whatever is at hand to hide from the world and for us it was games of war played out with cardboard squares moving across a colored board.

Poetry in the Schools, 60's Style

2009-05-03T19:12:00.001-04:00

And so we return to school in the fall of 1965. The 9^th graders of last year have vanished, they’re off to Woodbury HS. Now all of us are bound together for the next four years.

The school is now complete. The auto shop, the wood shop, the gym, the auditorium. All done. We’re settled in with our teachers for five long years.

I think, though I can be wrong because I am old, that this is the year teachers began teaching us with methods designed for the kids. You may ask, what are you talking about Jack? What I’m talking about is the horrible, misguided attempt by older men and women to relate to teenagers by incorporating various elements of the teenagers life into the education process.

In our case it was bringing Simon and Garfunkel into poetry. And as I write this I realize I’m off by one year (because my enfeebled old guy brain remembered the album came out a year later) but I’ll continue anyway because I just finished National Poetry Month and participated in dozens of examples of teaching for the kids. Not all misguided but all spotted a mile away by their charges.

In our English class the teacher and God alone can remember who that was brought out the Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel and played “I am a Rock”. Then she played “The Sounds of Silence”. Then she asked us what we thought the songs were about. I should note at this point I was an egghead. Which meant I had to have an answer or I was a failure. So were most of my classmates. We instantly shot our hands in the air and offered our various thoughts on the meanings of these songs. Keep in mind that before this moment I’d never thought a song meant anything other than some vague, undefined feeling, like being sad or happy or lonely or brave. Now I intellectualize shit like this all the time but back then I had no idea this might be important to anyone.

Suddenly like a bolt of lightning we all understood “poetry”!!!! It was full of secret meanings and codes and all we had to do was figure them out! The “Rock” was something other than a rock. The sounds of “Silence” weren’t just silence but something else that only we the smart kids could understand. Oh, and the artists who made the songs and poems.

We also got to swing away at Edgar Allen Poe and his “alliteration” (the bells, bells, bells, the tinkling tintinnabulation of the bells) and a couple other minor league knuckleheads. I suppose if we were older they’d have tossed in Dylan and Baez but for now we got Art and Paul.

Years later I found out that every kid in every NJ HS in 1966 had the same lesson plan. It felt like the Ed Sullivan Show had come to all our schools with one for the kids. Then they went back to the jugglers and Perry Como and Topo Gigio. No wonder we hated poetry. Our teachers had no idea how to teach it so they resorted to some cookie cutter technique that seemed hip (they were all young) that they learned at the teachers convention in Atlantic City that fall. Poetry was as alien to them as it was to us. They drove to work listening to the Dave Clark Five or the Beatles or if they were older Elvis and Sinatra and then had to find some way to talk about something that looked like it had just landed from Outer Space.

Wenonah in the Summer

2009-03-31T16:21:00.003-04:00

We'd leave the shore at the end of June, beginning of July, and return to Wenonah. Two weeks in the relatively balmy climate of a shore town. We'd pull into a near tropical climate 45 minutes later. South Jersey in the summer is hot and humid. Very hot and very humid. The trees by now were a deep, deep green. The garden we'd begun in May was filled with weeds and vegetables bursting out all over. The grass was high and thick. The house close and hot.

There was no air conditioning in the Wiler house until a few years later. We cooled off with a big ass attic fan that sucked air from below and blew it out a window, essentially creating some sort of breeze. We lay in bed in our sweat and listened to the crickets.

We'd wake up early and run to our bikes and head right to the pool. We spent the day swimming and getting a great tan and working up the nerve to flirt with girls. Of course we never did. Some of our friends were on the swim team. The Wenonah Swim Club had a great swim team for a little podunk town in South Jersey. I hated swimming on a team. Way too much work. In fact, although I liked swimming in general, the swim club itself could be a trial. I wasn't a particularly fast freestyle swimmer so in our games of tag I was always it.

But then, you've probably heard that before.

We'd end up back at the house for dinner. Then we'd head out to play the Gun Game or Kick the Can or just sit on the porch and watch the world walk by. It was as if we were in heaven. The night was filled with the sounds of cans rattling down the sidewalk, lightning bugs, the chirp of crickets and the sound of sneakers slapping cement. No, it wasn't as if we were in heaven. We were in heaven.

1965: Year of the World's Best Music

2009-03-29T11:10:00.007-04:00

I talked a little about the music of that summer of 1965. But the whole year was filled with ungodly tunes. Hit after hit after hit. When I was living in New Brunswick in the '80's there was a band that only played music from 65 & 66. They played at my second wedding. But Jack, you say, it couldn't have been that good. You must be just fondly remembering it; every year is pretty much the same when it comes to music. Well, here's my proof: The hits of 1965:

  The Ad Libs - The Boy From New York City - 02-65 - Blue Cat  Jewel Akens - The Birds And The Bees - 03-65 - Era  Herb Alpert - A Taste Of Honey - 11-65 - A&M  Eddy Arnold - Make The World Go Away - 12-65 - RCA  Len Barry - 1-2-3 - 11-65 - Decca  Fontella Bass - Rescue Me - 11-65 - Checker  Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger - 03-65 - UA  The Beach Boys - California Girls - 08-65 - Capitol  The Beach Boys - Do You Wanna Dance - 04-65 - Capitol  The Beach Boys - Help Me, Rhonda - 05-65- Capitol  The Beatles - Eight Days A Week - 03-65 - Capitol  The Beatles - Help! - 09-65 - Capitol  The Beatles - Ticket To Ride - 05-65 - Capitol  The Beatles - We Can Work It Out - 12-65 - Capitol  The Beatles - Yesterday - 10-65 - Capitol  The Beau Brummels - Just A Little - 06-65 - Autumn  The Beau Brummels - Laugh, Laugh - 02-65  James Brown - I Got You (I Feel Good) - 11-65  James Brown - Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - 08-65 - King  The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man - 06-65 - Columbia  The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! - 11-65 - Columbia  Freddy Cannon - Action - 09-65 - Warner  Mel Carter - Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me - 08-65 - Imperial  Alvin Cash & The Crawlers - Twine Time - 02-65 - Mar-V-Lus  The Castaways - Liar, Liar - 10-65 - Soma  Chad & Jeremy - Willow Weep For Me - 01-65 - World Artists  Cher - All I Really Want To Do - 08-65 - Imperial  Petula Clark - Downtown - 01-65 - Warner  Petula Clark - I Know A Place - 04-65 - Warner  Sam Cooke - Shake - 02-65 - RCA  Vic Dana - Red Roses For A Blue Lady - 04-65 - Dolton  The Dave Clark Five - Any Way You Want It - 01-65 - Epic  The Dave Clark Five - Catch Us If You Can - 09-65 - Epic  The Dave Clark Five - Come Home - 03-65 - Epic  The Dave Clark Five - I Like It Like That - 07-65 - Epic  The Dave Clark Five - Over And Over - 12-65 - Epic  Jackie DeShannon - What The World Needs Now Is Love - 07-65 - Imperial  Dick & Deedee - Thou Shalt Not Steal - Warner  Ronnie Dove - One Kiss For Old Time's Sake - 05-65 - Diamond  Patty Duke - Don't Just Stand There - 08-65 - UA  Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone - 08-65 - Columbia  Bob Dylan - Positively 4th Street - 10-65 - Columbia  Shirley Ellis - The Clapping Song - 04-65 - Congress  Shirley Ellis - The NameGame - 01-65 - Congress  Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders - Game Of Love - 04-65 - Fontana  The Fortunes - You've Got Your Troubles - 09-65 - Press  The Four Seasons - Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby Goodbye) - 02-65 - Philips  The Four Seasons - Let's Hang On! - 11-65 - Philips  The Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself - 06-65 - Motown  The Four Tops - It's The Same Old Song - 08-65 - Motown  Freddie & The Dreamers - I'm Telling You Now - 04-65 - Tower  Marvin Gaye - Ain't That Peculiar - 11-65 - Tamla  Marvin Gaye - How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You - 01-65 - Tamla  Marvin Gaye - I'll Be Doggone - 05-65 - Tamla  The Gentrys - Keep On Dancing - 10-65 - MGM  Gerry & The Pacemakers - Ferry Across The Mersey - 03-65 - Laurie  Bobby Goldsboro - Little Things - 03-65 - UA  Dobie Gray - The "In" Crowd - 02-65 - Charger  Roy Head - Treat Her Right - 10-65 - Back Beat  Herman's Hermits - Can't You Hear My Heartbeat - 03-65 - MGM  Herman's Hermits - I'm Henry VIII I Am - 07-65 - MGM  Herman's Hermits - Just A Little Bit Better - 10-65 - MGM  Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter - 04-65 - MGM  Herman's Hermits - Silhouettes - 05-65 - MGM  Herman's Hermits - Wonderful World - 06-65 - MGM  The Impressions - Amen - 01-65 - ABC Paramount  The Impressions - People Get Ready - 03-65 - ABC Paramount  Horst Jankowski - A Walk In The Black Forest - 06-65 -Mercury  Jay & The Americans - Cara Mia - 07-65 - UA  Jay & The Americans - Let's Lock The Door (And Throw Away The Key) - 02-65 - UA  Jay & The Americans - Some Enchanted Evening - 10-65 - UA  Jack Jones - The Race Is On - 04-65 - Kapp (written and recorded first by country singer George Jones at the same time on United Artists)  Tom Jones - It's Not Unusual - 05-65 - Parrot  Tom Jones - What's New Pussycat? - 07-65 - Parrot  Bert Kaempfert - Red Roses For A Blue Lady - 03-65 - Decca  The Kingsmen - The Jolly Green Giant - 02-65 - Wand  The Kinks - All Day And All Of The Night - 02-65 - Reprise  The Kinks - Tired Of Waiting For You - 04-65 - Reprise  Brenda Lee - Too Many Rivers - 07-65 - Decca  Dickey Lee - Laurie (Strange Things Happen) - 07-65 - TCF Hall  Barbara Lewis - Baby, I'm Yours - 08-65 - Atlantic  Barbara Lewis - Make Me Your Baby - 11-65 - Atlantic  Gary Lewis & The Playboys - Count Me In - 05-65 - Liberty  Gary Lewis & The Playboys - Everybody Loves A Clown - 10-65 - Liberty  Gary Lewis & The Playboys - Save Your Heart For Me - 07-65 - Liberty  Gary Lewis & The Playboys - This Diamond Ring - 02-65 - Liberty  Little Anthony & The Imperials - Hurt So Bad - DCP  The Lovin' Spoonful - Do You Believe In Magic - 10-65 - Kama Sutra  Martha & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run - 04-65 - Gordy  Dean Martin - I Will - 12-65 - Reprise  Barbara Mason - Yes, I'm Ready - 07-65 - Artic  The McCoys - Fever - 12-65 - Bang  The McCoys - Hang On Sloopy - 09-65 - Bang  Barry McGuire - Eve Of Destruction - 09-65 - Dunhill  Roger Miller - Engine Engine #9 - 06-65 - Smash  Roger Miller - England Swings - 12-65 - Smash  Roger Miller - King Of The Road - 02-65 - Smash  The Miracles - The Tracks Of My Tears - 08-65 - Tamla  The Moody Blues - Go Now! - 04-65 - London  The Newbeats - Run, Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) - 11-65 - Hickory  Patti Page - Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte - 06-65 - Columbia  Peter & Gordon - I Go To Pieces - 02-65 - Capitol  Gene Pitney - Last Chance To Turn Around - 06-65 - Musicor  Elvis Presley - Crying In The Chapel - 05-65 - RCA  Elvis Presley - I'm Yours - 10-65 - RCA  Elvis Presley - (Such An) Easy Question - 07-65 - RCA  The Ramsey Lewis Trio - Hang On Sloopy - 12-65 - Cadet  The Ramsey Lewis Trio - The "In" Crowd - 09-65 - Argo  The Righteous Brothers -Ebb Tide - 12-65 - Philles  The Righteous Brothers - Just Once In My Life - 05-65 - Philles  The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody - 08-65 - Philles  The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - 01-65 - Philles  Johnny Rivers - Seventh Son - 06-65 - Imperial  The Rolling Stones - Get Off Of My Cloud - 10-65 - London  The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - 06-65 - London  The Rolling Stones - The Last Time - 04-65 - London  Billy Joe Royal - Down In The Boondocks - 08-65 - Columbia  Billy Joe Royal - I Knew You When - 11-65 - Columbia  Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs - Wooly Bully - 05-65 - MGM  The Seekers - I'll Never Find Another You - 04-65 - Capitol  The Shangri-Las - I Can Never Go Home Anymore - 12-65 - Red Bird  Del Shannon - Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow The Sun) - 01-65 - Amy  Silkie - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away - 11-65 - Fontana  Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds Of Silence - 12-65 - Columbia  The Sir Douglas Quintet - She's About A Mover - 06-65 - Tribe  Sonny - Laugh At Me - 09-65 - Atco  Sonny & Cher - Baby Don't Go - 10-65 - Reprise  Sonny & Cher - But You're Mine - 11-65 - Atco  Sonny & Cher - I Got You Babe - 08-65 - Atco  Sounds Orchestral - Cast Your Fate To The Wind - 05-65 - Parkway  The Strangeloves - I Want Candy - 08-65 - Bang  The Supremes - Back In My Arms Again - 05-65 - Motown  The Supremes - I Hear A Symphony - 11-65 - Motown  The Supremes - Nothing But Heartaches - 09-65 - Motown  The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love - 03-65 - Motown  The Temptations - My Girl - 02-65 - Gordy  Joe Tex - Hold What You've Got - 01-65 - Dial  The Toys - A Lovers Concerto - 10-65 - Dynovoice  The Turtles - It Ain't Me Babe - 09-65 - White Whale  The Vogues - You're The One - 10-65 - Co & Ce  Jr. Walker & The All Stars - Shotgun - 03-65 - Soul  We Five - You Were On My Mind - 09-65 - A&M  Ian Whitcomb - You Turn Me On - 07-65 - Tower  Wonder Who? - Don't Think Twice - 12-65 - Philips  Glenn Yarbrough - Baby The Rain Must Fall - 05-65 - RCA  The Yardbirds - For Your Love - 06-65 - Epic  The Yardbirds - Heart Full Of Soul - 09-65 - Epic  The Zombies - Tell Her No - 02-65 - Parrot

Look at all these names! The Beatles, The Stones, James Brown, Bob Dylan, The Supremes, The Temps, Barry motherfucking McGuire, The Zombies, The Turtles, Sir Douglas Quintet, Dean Martin, Roger Miller, Sonny & Cher!!!! All mixed up together. Patty Duke next to Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs! The Yardbirds & Patty Page! Herman's Hermits have more hits than the Beatles, more than Elvis. The crummy and the great all tossed together! And all of us chuckleheads walking around humming those tunes, strolling down the beach with all that music in our heads, all that wild world.

Boy Scouts of America

2009-03-08T15:39:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm going to break my cardinal rule. I'm going back a bit in time so I can talk about something I forgot. I talked a bit about this in an earlier post but realized that I had much more to say. I forgot that in the fall of 1964 I joined the Boy Scouts. I'd been a Cub Scout and a Webelo (how's that for a weird name) and it was my goal to become a Boy Scout. So I joined Troop 50. I was happy as a clam. We met every Thursday (I think) in the Methodist Church. There'd be a reading of the minutes, some discussion of various upcoming events, talk about camping trips, a bit of Scout lore and then we'd play various physical games. Chief among them was British Bulldog. I have no memory of what this game consisted of; only that it involved mashing into each other very hard. There must have been rules but who knows.

Our Scout Leader was (and I could be wrong here) Ralph Leeds father and the senior leaders were guys like Kingsley Lentz. What a great name. Kingsley. It was all about the outdoors. I couldn't wait to go on my first camping trip. I was excited and happy.

I forgot one minor thing. I wet the bed. So we decamped to Elk Neck, Maryland and on the first night I wet my sleeping bag. You can imagine this might have been a tad embarrassing. It was. In fact it was humiliating and then I got to do it again the next night.

I'd wet the bed for my whole life up until then. My parents took me to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia looking for help, we tried various homemade cures and strategies but nothing worked. Like clockwork each evening I pissed in my pants. This was only pleasurable for about two minutes. Then it was cold and wet.

My bed had plastic sheets. I couldn't sleep over at other friend's houses. I told no one about my problem. It was my little secret.

Then my little secret was hanging on a rope in the middle of our camp site. My soaked sleeping bag.

I quit the Boy Scouts after that. I did rejoin several years later but we'll get to that. Later in the year or perhaps it was Fall of 8th grade my parents found my cure. It was a rubber mat that they put under the sheets. When liquids hit the mat it set off a loud, loud alarm. I would wake up. Pretty soon I would wake up before the alarm went off. I was Pavlov's dog. It worked. Within a week or two I stopped wetting the bed. But I've never forgotten the alarm. I can't stand a bell that rings for more than a moment or two. I pick up calls before everyone at every job I've ever had. I've never forgotten my sleeping bag. Isn't it odd how secrets come back to haunt you?

Ocean City 1965

2009-03-02T17:49:00.002-05:00

I'm bored with 7th grade. Okay, I barely remember 7th grade, it being a long time ago and me being old and forgetful. So let's cut to the summer of 1965. A great year no matter how you cut it.

My family went on vacation this year to Ocean City where we took up residence in two buildings along with several other families from Wenonah and my dad's brother and his family. It was kid heaven. Our apartments were right on the beach and we were there for two weeks. A few times we even got out of school before the year was over to go.

The apartments were all the way at the end of OC. I think between 56th & 57th streets but I'm sure I'm wrong and someone will tell me in a day or so. They were simple buildings built in the late fifties. Living room, sort of dining room, bedrooms, bath, shower outside. We spent maybe 8 hours a day inside unless it rained. Besides my family we stayed with our parents friends. The Lakes, the Shepards, the Pistilli's, the Nugent's and others who came and went but these were the standby's. This meant we had tons of friends. Charlie Lake, Debbie Lake, Jack and Joe Shepard, Bruce Nugent, Dave Pistilli. It also meant we had our own little world on the beach.

On the Saturday we were to leave it would invariably be foggy or rainy and we'd be whining about not being able to have fun and my Dad said, always, don't worry it will burn off. And it always did. We drove to OC the back way through Glassboro and Buena, past the Mexican movies in Buena, past the old lost taverns along the way until we arrived at the 34th street bridge and in just twenty odd blocks were at our shore place.

We'd unpack like demons, throw on our trunks, grab our towels and race to the beach and the water and OH MY FUCKING GOD THE WATER IS FREEZING!. And it was. This is the 2nd week of June and the water temperature on the Jersey shore is typically 52-56 degrees. This is bone chilling cold. Your little balls would get sucked up deep inside you, your ankles would ache a terrible terrible ache but you had to go in, you had to go in.

Our parents would arrive moments later and spread the chairs and blankets around like some rude compound. Maybe an umbrella, maybe not. We'd run in and out of the water, hike to the point south of 59th street, explore the gullies and the rocks and our fathers would scope out babes while our mothers...actually I don't know what they were doing. Probably scoping out young men but this is 1965 so maybe not.

We were there for two weeks. We played box ball, which is some weird combo of handball and baseball, in which Mr. Lake would usually crush my foot and break my little toe. We'd play handball. We'd play frisbee. We'd body surf. We'd go to the boardwalk! The boardwalk! The boardwalk! The Pavilion! Salt water taffy! Mack and Manco's pizza! The cool hobby store that sold Airfix little men! The Taylor Ham Pork roll store with Pennsylvania Dutch Root Beer! And of course, of course, Gillian's Wonderland!

The ferris wheel, the merry go round, the rides, the cotton candy, the sheer pleasure in pissing away all the money you had from shoveling snow or raking leaves or from your lazy uncles and aunts at Christmas! It was the greatest place in the world in 1965 for a mess of chowderheads from South Jersey. We body surfed, we played, we ogled Penny Pistilli and my Aunt Simone's bikini. We cursed in a stupid 7th grade way. We wore clam diggers and stupid hats right out of Beach Blanket Bingo.

We were in heaven.

Fashion and the Sixties

2009-01-31T14:05:00.004-05:00

My actual favorite part of HS and Junior HS was clothes and hair. Not my clothes and not my hair but everyone else's. Girls in particular were hotter than hot. Beehive hairdo's, white boots, over use of mascara and eye shadow. Guys got to wear skinny pants and skinny ties and sharp shoes. My erotic ideals were all formed in the mid-sixties. In fact when the punk era reigned supreme I was happy as a pig in shit. All the women looked like really fierce versions of my high school crushes. It was like heaven because this time I could do something about it.

Of course in 1965 I could do nothing about it. It was the first year my mother let me choose my own clothing. We drove to Pitman and went to Jack Lang's the premier men's and boy's clothing outlet in our little corner of the world. This made our little corner of the world very small. We could have driven to Philadelphia and I could have gone to Brook's Brothers or Wanamakers but we didn't. We went to Pitman. I picked out my spring school clothes. An chartreuse Izod LaCoste polo shirt and a pair of vaguely lime green, glen plaid pants. Also a zip up spring jacket.

We drove from there to Ernie's Shoe Post in Mantua. At Ernie's I picked out a pair of desert boots. Plus a pair of PF Flyers.

I was ready to go. I was going to be one snappy dresser. What a dope I was. I would make these mistakes with clothing dozens of times over the years but this stands out as one of my worst. I walked through the school like a green lollipop. At least my desert boots were cool. But I turned no heads. Instead I retreated further into the world of books and history and all the attendant bullshit of my tiny world.

Next up...Ocean City.

The Book Report from Hell

2009-01-28T14:35:00.000-05:00

Let’s go back again to 1965 and Gateway Regional HS. For the first time in our lives we move from class to class. There are announcements on the loudspeaker. We pledge allegiance to the flag along with a disembodied voice. We have new classes, English instead of Reading, Earth Science instead of Science, Mathematics not Arithmetic, and on and on.
My English teacher was Mrs. Oglesby. For our first book report we are asked to do a presentation along with several other students. The presentation would summarize the book and illustrate the reasons you liked it. Nightmare. Horrible, horrible nightmare. Out loud performance was not my thing in 7th grade. You can probably understand since I was a midgety, skinny runt with a cowlick. My voice was as high as a birds. I felt like some monstrous geek and I was.
But there was no way out. As I recall I was hooked up with Jim Maddox and Steven Kaye and the book we selected was “Last of the Mohicans”. This was just about the only part of the assignment I liked. I was a James Fenimore Cooper freak. I read all his books. Books that were universally reviled by any competent writer or critic. But they had war and Indians and sacrifice and forests and blood and an acceptable amount of romance.
The girls all picked “Rebecca”.
This killed us right from the git go. :Rebecca” is a fairly easily summarized story while “Last of the Mohicans” has a jumbled up plot that isn’t clear for a hundred pages. Plus the girls were better at this. Their presentations were funny and inventive and informative. Thank God I can’t remember ours. I do remember it was a miserable failure. We tanked. I remember slinking away from the front of the class thankful only that we’d finished.
This deep sense of embarrassment and humiliation was to walk just behind me till senior year. You can only imagine what a joy it was to go to school each day.

So Much Time So little work

2009-01-27T22:34:00.002-05:00

Hi all,

Sorry I've been a lazy fuck.

So, before I give you my post about Wenonah in 1965 let me remind you of three things dear to my heart.

First, Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Given that there was only one black girl in my class at Gateway Regional HS and given that I drove through a black neighborhood with outhouses to get to high school this is a wonderful moment in American history.

Second, two events dear to my heart and poetry were set aside this year. The Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival and the Frost Place Festival of Poetry. I could say lots of shit about this but mostly it sucks that money kills an art that makes no money and enriches peoples lives.

Manana... or maybe Friday... Book reports, Rebecca, and the Last of the Mohicans.

God Bless, Good Night, and my regrets on the passing of my dear friend Rick Sonnenberg, known to many of us as Rick Lopez. Death comes and steals away and the best are caught in his arms.

New Year's Eve

2009-01-05T14:03:00.001-05:00

When I was young my brothers and I were banished to my grandmother’s house on New Year’s Eve. There we drank half an illicit beer and ate ham sandwiches and watched Guy Lombardo ring in the new. That is if we didn’t fall asleep because of the beer.

Or else my grandmother and Aunt Gersh would come to the house and we’d do the same thing in Wenonah as we would in Bala Cynwyd. My parents were engaged in adult fun. We had no idea what adult fun was. So far as we could tell from our few exposures to a grown up party it consisted of laughing loud, drinking, and smoking and staying up late. This did not seem fun. Plus they played the Mills Brothers and Perry Como.

They did not go out to fancy night clubs, they went to friends houses and checked in by phone. No real need to do that as we had been trained well and staying up till midnight was extraordinarily difficult. So it was that my brothers and my little sister and I rang in the New Year of 1965. It may have been that year that my parents had the party at their home. I can remember vaguely one such party so let’s call it that one.

I was sitting at the end of my bed with my cat, Surprise. The warm tones of Frank Sinatra filled the night. There was a woman’s high laugh. The light from our back porch shown out onto the lawn and the clear night sky was lit up with a thousand stars. Happy New Year and noise and fireworks and honking and then the music again and sleep.
I woke the next morning to a house full of half-empty glasses that smelled of whiskey and ginger ale, overflowing ashtrays, and a house as quiet as a morgue.

Holly, Jolly, Christmas in 1964

2008-12-24T11:46:00.000-05:00

I talked earlier about our Christmases but think it’s worth revisiting since Mick and Ted and I are all older and we have a young sister, Mary Lou. In December of 1964 I was officially a teenager, thirteen. Mick was eleven and a half and Ted seven and a half. Mick and I were hip to Santa being our parents but Ted and Mary Lou still believed. Ted had serious doubts but Ted worked hard at holding onto the good things in his childhood and didn’t want to let Santa go.

Our Christmas ritual was to put up the lights outside on Thanksgiving weekend. This effort took about half a day and Mick and I “helped” our Dad. Our help was limited since we were inept but we were able to untangle the lights and hand my Dad various tools. We had a wrap around porch surrounded by bushes so the bushes and doors were ringed with lights.

After my birthday and my father’s birthday (14th & 15th) Dad would buy the tree. The tree was always, always, gigantic. We had twelve foot ceilings so we’d get a twelve foot tree. The tree sat outside in a bucket filled with water in an alcove off the front porch. It would not be put up till Christmas Eve morn.

We might also go to Gaudio’s to see the light displays and pick out ornaments. Gaudio’s was a garden center in Woodbury, long vanished, that had a huge selection of Christmas decorations to supplement their gardening business. If we went to visit our Grandmother Glading in Pennsylvania we’d drive back admiring the various light displays. Not as elaborate as todays but to us, astounding. I’m telling you this because really and truly none of us cared that much about anything except Christmas morning and that never came fast enough.

Finally it would be Christmas Eve! My mother would spend the day baking cookies and making stuffing for the turkey. My father and Mick and I would lug in the tree and set it in the stand my parent’s had owned since I was a baby. Christmas tree stands pretty much sucked back then so we’d use wire to keep the tree from falling. My Dad would stand on a chair and nail one end into the wall then wrap it around the tree and repeat the process till the tree was stable and straight. Or kind of straight. Then it would sit all day, unadorned, till after dinner so its branches could fall.

Mick and I would go to our rooms in the afternoon and attempt to wrap the presents we’d purchased for our parent’s and our brothers and sister. I mangled package after package. Then dinner, hopefully pizza or cheesesteaks, and then we’d trim the tree. My Dad had a system and Mick and I learned it well. Large balls at the bottom, medium balls in the middle, and small ones at the top. We’d alternate between tinsel and garlands depending on my mother’s moods. Then we’d hang our stockings in the 2nd living room on the bookshelf and sit down together in the living room. My mother would sit with Ted and Mary Lou on either side and read, first the Christmas Story, about the birth of Christ and second, Twas the Night Before Christmas. It was wonderful. Cheesy but wonderful.

Finally we’d place our gifts beneath the tree, set out Santa’s cookies and milk and then it was off to bed. Mick and I had recently been relegated to the attic for a bedroom and we went up and tried to sleep. The night passed. Slowly. Santa’s reindeer landed, somehow found a way to get him in our house, and left to spread more Christmas cheer. We tried to sleep. We played chess. We tried to sleep.

Then it’s 6am and Christmas morning and we all run to our parents room to wake them up. It’s the house rules that you can’t go downstairs Christmas morning until Dad checked to make sure Santa wasn’t there. Once we’d get the all clear we hurtled down the stairs to see the heaps and heaps of presents. Mom and Dad would pass them out from piles they’d set up the night before (or rather Santa had set up the night before) and we’d tear them to pieces.

After we’d finished with the presents we’d empty our stockings. Our stocking stuffers were a kind of weird mix of the 1930’s and the present. We’d get little toys or funny things but also, always, a tangerine. A tangerine? I never understood this until I realized late in life that this would have been a rare treat for a child in an America still stuck in the Great Depression. For us though it was just a piece of fruit. Admittedly we didn’t often have tangerines in the Wiler house. Most of our experience with actual fruit, not canned fruit, was limited to apples, sometimes grapes, bananas, and in the summer peaches and blueberries. Oranges and Tangerines would only show up once in awhile…too expensive I think.

After opening the presents Mom and Dad sat on the couch and watched us play with our new gifts. They always seemed very happy. Mick and I would then go to our friends houses to see what they’d gotten and Dad would be left to pick up the mess with Mom. When we returned we’d walk up the block to visit our Grandmother Wiler and get gifts from her. Finally we’d sit down to turkey dinner. Sometimes relatives would drop by with relative gifts. My fathers Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor or our Grandmother Glading and our Aunt Gersh all might stop by to share the day.

It was and is my favorite holiday. I don’t look at it with cynicism or dread. Tonight Johanna and I will be joined by her mother and sister and nephews and our dear friends. We’ll eat and drink and sing and laugh. It’s Christmas! In the words of Tiny Tim, “God Bless Us, Everyone!”

They're Dancing in the Streets

2008-12-13T15:11:00.002-05:00

It's an easy seque from my stupid dance lessons to my first dance. Spring, 1965. The cafeteria is converted into a wonderland and the girls and boys of Gateway go to their first dance. Hop. Keep in mind that in truth I had no idea how to really dance to the music that was popular among young people. In fact, I hardly listened to music that was popular. Oh sure, I knew about the Beatles and every once in awhile I'd hear music on the radio or watch Shindig or Hullabaloo but my musical world was largely shaped by my parent's listening habits. Which means I was raised on the Mills Brothers, Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett...ad infinitum. And the worst of all the worst: "Sing Along With Mitch". No, there were actually worse acts but my mind has graciously deleted them.

So now I was going to Gateway to dance to the music of my generation. At least as it stood at that time. I was going to gyrate wildly to the Twist and the Mash Potato and the Swim and swig soda and fall in love and kiss a beautiful girl under the moon. Then ride home with my folks and sleep happy with a smile on my face.

Wrong.

I was going to get dressed in a stupid Madras jacket with a clip on tie and tight cords and walk for the first time into the most uncomfortable experience of my life. Sure, I talked to girls in school. You kind of had to. And yes I wore clothes and I'd taken dance lessons and I knew about music. But I had no idea how all these things went together and I was about to find out how little I really knew.

I should tell you that, at least in Westville, there were CYO dances that kids had been going to for awhile. Some kids from Wenonah might even go earlier in the year. This means that they had a leg up on us chuckleheads. This means that they were more comfortable, knew how to dance, had cool clothes, a cool haircut and could walk up to any girl they knew and ask for a dance. I, on the other hand, was expert at standing next to the wall.

So this is the way things were. A row of a dozen or more skinny boys with their backs pressed against the newly painted cinder block. Groups of girls with cups of punch huddled together, giggling, looking here and there. And in the middle girls and boys all with cool clothes and hair dancing and having a great time. This great divide was to be my world for the next 4 years or so. Cursed and alone we geeks clustered together like fools. Out on the floor girls and boys laughed and hugged and kissed and had great fun.

The saddest part is how all of this is about confidence and courage. In fact all of us felt the same way. It's just that some of us said fuck it and walked away from the wall.

Dance Lessons

2008-12-11T18:16:00.002-05:00

I may be off a bit here. In my dotage I'm not sure if these events took place in 7th or 8th grade. I asked several classmates and they were as clueless as I am. So I figure since it's my blog I'll make it 7th grade. In Wenonah when I was a teenager the parents all felt we required some education in the social graces. Specifically ballroom dancing. None of us shared their opinion but this seemed to be a non-negotiable issue. By banding together the parents insured that none of us could say, "but Jack Wiler doesn't have to go". Even worse they used social pressure and hounded us as we visited each others homes.

So it was that in early winter we were herded to the Presbyterian Church along with the grade below us to learn how to dance. We had two instructors, a man and a woman, and they loved their work. We did not. We began with simple steps; the Box Step, the Fox Trot, and moved onto more elaborate things like waltzes and sambas. It was torture. Torture for so many, many reasons. First we had to dress up in good clothes, second we had to dance with girls or vice versa boys, third, we were not given a choice of who we would dance with. Our partners were assigned according to an arcane formula.

And so we whirled across the floor of the multi-purpose room of the Presbyterian Church, twenty or thirty young men and women with pimples and greasy hair or odd clothing or weird heads. All of us forced to comport ourselves as ladies and gentlemen.

We did this for about eight weeks. The final week we had a formal dance (suits and ties, dresses) and a dance contest. And we all wanted to win. Go figure. This thing we hated we now wanted to excel at and we took pride in our ability to glide effortlessly across the floor.

I'm sad to report that this class has really had only one benefit in my life...when I go to a wedding I can do a mean foxtrot. Otherwise in the real world of young men and women dancing it was a waste of time. Next...going to my first dance at Gatorland.

Street Football

2008-11-09T16:42:00.003-05:00

I guess every kid in the US of A has played street football or some variant of it. We certainly played our share of games. A day like today would have been perfect. Mild weather, the trees nearly stripped of their leaves, nothing much to do on a Sunday afternoon.

We played on S. Lincoln Ave and mostly in front of my house. The game was a passing game. Take ten steps down the sideline and cut across, Mick, you go long, then the snap and the count 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, 5 Miss... and the rush and the pass. Or take ten steps and cut behind the Marx's Cadillac or everyone go long or the crisscross. Terry Fleming and Chris DeHart were often quarterbacks but sometimes they'd gang up on us and it would be me and Mick and Sam Stewart vs Gary Condell and Terry and Chris. This was a lopsided game because Sam couldn't catch a football to save his life and I had no arm but we played like it was the most important game in the world. Sometimes we won but mostly we'd lose.

The game was played on a macadam street so if you fell, or were pushed, you'd slide a few feet along the rough stones and ding your knees or your elbows. The palms of your hands.

We'd play all afternoon. Changing sides, changing players, new guys coming in, guys going home for dinner or a family trip, the game kept going. Once in awhile my father or Al Frank or my Uncle would join in to make us look like the knuckleheads we were. I remember one memorable day when Father Kernan from the Church of the Incarnation showed up. Running routes in his robes and smoking cigarettes. Might have been a curse or two.

There was a fierce competition to the games but there was great joy. The long bomb through the trees, the unexpected sight of Sam pulling down the ball in front of Chris DeHart, the sack, the surprise play, the Hail Mary, the hidden ball trick. It was a game with few rules and many, many arguments. Interference, he pushed me, you went before the count, how can we win with this team, at least give us Gary. Skinny little kids running for hours, my asthma would kick in but we'd keep playing. Ed Mossop or Johnny Hindman or Stewart DeHart and Bobby McQuaide would pass in and out of the games. A blur of hikes and counts and passes and the unexpected run or Charlie Flitcraft, fast as lightening turning a four yard toss into a touchdown. The goals were undefined, the scores forgotten or argued about. No kicking. Plenty of shoving.

The sun setting, the ball dark against the sky, the hands reaching, reaching, reaching.

My Name is Jimmy Carl Black and I'm the Indian of the Group

2008-11-07T18:28:00.002-05:00

I'm going to skip ahead a bit to senior year. Only because tonight I read that Jimmy Carl Black of the Mothers of Invention had passed away at the age of 70. The Mothers of Invention were one of the finest bands of the sixties. Weird, truly experimental, and, well, fun. They were funny and inventive and crazy. I loved them the first time I heard them and I wasn't even on dope.

Besides Frank Zappa, the leader of the group, Jimmy Carl Black and Ian Underwood were my favorites. Jimmy because of the quote that opens this post and Ian Underwood because of one the finest sax solos of all time on Uncle Meat with Ian Underwood whips it out. God, I loved that band. Because brown shoes don't make it and we could always make the water turn black. Impish, insane, fun, musically complex. The best sixties rock band ever. Better than the Stones or the Beatles because they didn't give a fuck about the music industry. In fact they were totally anti establishment even as they made fun of hippies and doo wop and everything under the sun.

In some ways what is even more interesting about Jimmy Carl Black is not his work with Francis Vincent Zappa but his life. His obit says that after the Mothers disbanded and his band failed he went to work painting houses with Arthur Brown. Arthur Brown of "Fire"! What a bizarre house painting company that must have been. After that he worked in a donut shop. One of my musical idols working in a donut shop while I was driving a truck after college. If you had told me senior year in HS that in the late 70's me and Jimmy Carl would be on the same economic strata I'd have said you were nuts.

My friends from Rutgers and I went to see the Mothers at a Halloween show at the Capitol Theater in Passaic. It was a raucous joy from beginning to end. Within two years they were no more and Jimmy Carl was painting houses in West Texas.

President Elect Barack Obama

2008-11-05T06:21:00.001-05:00

Wow! What a wonderful night! What a great country! God Bless America!

Election 2008

2008-11-03T19:28:00.002-05:00

Well, it's crunch time. Time to put up or shut up. Vote. If you don't you own what comes next. Make a statement. Obviously I'd prefer Barack Obama. But vote for someone. Don't sit home and say it doesn't matter it's just same old, same old. It's not.

We have an extraordinary event happening right in front of us. A black man who could be elected President. A woman who could be Vice President. In our lifetime! Who would have thought. A black man couldn't have gotten elected dog catcher when I was young and women didn't leave the home. What an astounding moment in history.

Sure racists might give the office to McCain or Obama might turn out to be Jimmy Carter without a cardigan. Any number of things could happen. But one thing is sure...we're rid of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove and their merry band of thieves. Fuck em. I've been waiting eight years for this day to come. Let them slink out of town with their tails between their legs.

I'll be at the Christa McAuliffe School casting my vote at 6:15. I'll be voting for my rights, for peace, and to preserve this great land. If people in Iraq can give a fuck about voting so can we. Vote.

ps: Jeez was this a NY Times editorial or what? I don't think it's a good idea to have that knucklehead Sarah Palin a heartbeat from the Presidency...especially when the President would be very, very old. Not a good plan. If she gets in we're more fucked than we were with bushcheneyrove. Vote for Barack Obama.

HO Racing

2008-11-02T18:52:00.004-05:00

I feel foolish talking about this shit now. Our country is at a crossroads, the world is in turmoil, the dogs of war are barking everywhere.

But in 1964 we became Aurora HO race car enthusiasts. We got our Aurora kits and laid out our layouts and began to race our little cars on little tracks in our basements. At the time there was a nationwide craze for 32nd scale tracks. There were racing tracks built all over the nation for people to bring their cars and race them against each other.

Not us. We bought the smaller size. Speed was the gig but speed on a small, small scale. Nonetheless the ability to make your car faster became a dominant impulse. We bought magazines and parts to soup up our cars. We were mini Ed Roths. We bought slicks for the rear tires and learned how to make our cars super fast.

We envied our friends layouts. As usual Terry had the coolest layout in the land. Trees and shit and the fastest car. All laid out on an 11' piece of plywood. Mine was small and in my basement and no one came to try out their cars.

We bought containers to carry our cars and we bought extra parts and we were mini mechanics. We sat like demented enthusiasts for hours at a time making little plastic cars race around and around and around. Not far from playing video games and killing aliens hours after hour after hour.

I remember one night in mid winter walking home from Terry's with my little beige plastic box and taking a bad spill on the ice and all my precious cars spilled out into the street.

I cried. I raged. I was filled with humiliation, not just for the fall and the loss but because my cars never were as good as Terry's. I was incompetent. I was just a chump. A fool.

When I got sick and fell outside my home one frigid January night I was made acutely aware of the parallels.

When I got home that night in the early sixties I told no one of my humiliation. I went upstairs and lay in my bed and felt smaller than I'd ever felt in my life. I wanted more than anything to be able to make my cars race like the wind. To have a cool track. To have people admire me and my passion.

Instead I spent that night picking up little electronic parts and rubber tires and tiny pieces of plastic under a cold January moon.

The things we care about seem so foolish. I could name dozens now equally stupid and I'm a grown man.

Jesus.

Miracle in South Philly

2008-10-31T07:32:00.001-04:00

The Phillies won! The curse is over! My brother Ted has not thrown himself in front of a train! Now if the Eagles can keep it together...

The 1964 Phillies (a cautionary tale)

2008-10-28T14:04:00.001-04:00

I’m going to break from my goals tonight because of the prodding of Bob Thomas. I jetted past the summer of 1964 without acknowledging the greatest Philadelphia Phillies collapse of all time. The Phillies were the only game in town by the ‘60’s. Of course before the Phillies they had shared the city with the Athletics. For decades Connie Mack and the Athletics were the closest thing to baseball glory folks from Philly and the tri state area could brag about. The Phillies were wretched. They even played their games in the shadow of Connie Mack as their stadium was named for the old gentleman.
Connie Mack Stadium was in a ruined part of town. When we went to games my dad would dip into his pocket for a quarter for a neighborhood kid to “watch” our car. Basically extortion money.
The stadium itself was quintessential old school baseball. Dirty, decaying and cool. You were right in the game and the decrepitude of the interior only amplified the beauty of emerging from the runways into the light of day or the glare of the stadium lights. The world was green, white, and brown and the giants of our youth were right there in front of us.
Sadly none of them were on the Philadelphia Phillies. It is a sad measure of their lack of skill that most of us picked other teams to root for during the season. Terry revered the Yankees, my team was my Dad’s team, the Reds, Mick had his beloved Pirates and on and on. Christ Kenny Fell preferred the hapless Mets to the Phillies.
But to continue…in the summer of 1964 the Phillies were in first place for 73 consecutive days. They had a huge lead coming into the final days of the season. This was before wild cards and extra divisions and shit so they were going to the World Series if they could just hold on for a few more games.
They couldn’t. Along with the collapse of the Mets in 2007 there has never been a more ignominious end to a baseball season. Of course Phillie fans knew it would happen. Most loser towns (Chicago for one) accept this as a matter of course. No way their hopes will not be dashed and dashed they were.
My favorite part of this entire train wreck was watching Sally Star on tv coming apart day by day as the Phillies committed more and more bonehead blunders. By the time they’d blown the whole thing it looked as though she was going to have to spend a few weeks in the loony bin.
It wasn’t till I was long out of Wenonah that the Phillies found baseball glory and tonight they’re knocking on the door. Let’s hope the ghosts of ’64 aren’t walking down from old Connie Mack to help them along.

Margie's Luncheonette

2008-10-09T20:15:00.002-04:00

Let's talk a bit more about Margie's Luncheonette. Especially now that I'm in seventh grade and more and more of my friends spend time there. The counter is at the front and is usually full in the morning with working men having coffee and a bite or not. In the afternoon the booths were full of older elementary students and then finally after the buses from Gateway arrived; the high school students.

Margie's was both a town meeting place and a place to learn to be cool. What to drink, what to eat, how to dress, how to talk, what music to hear, what music not to hear. You were allowed to go there or you weren't by your parents. A lunch at Margie's was a treat.

I remember my grandmother Glading asking where Margie was and getting a long convoluted answer. Where she was, was not there. The waitresses were older and smoked cigarettes and cracked wise. The counter man was brusque with us kids but that shouldn't be surprising. We were fools and who gives a fuck about little kids.

Margie's was where we bought models for ourselves and for birthday gifts. Margie's was where we bought comics. Margie's was where we got candy and school supplies and it's the only place in the world where I ever shoplifted. Yes, it's true. In seventh grade for about two months I stole erasers and pencils from Margie's. Like I needed or wanted them.

We ate cheesesteaks and hamburgers and drank shakes and cokes and dreamed of being old. Had we had a brain and looked at the men at the counter we might have thought twice about that but we were young and stupid and this was the center of Wenonah. Which made it the center of the universe. Almost.

Autumn in Wenonah

2008-10-05T10:07:00.003-04:00

So high school wasn't that much fun. So I was alienated from my long time friends. So I rode around on my bike feeling sorry for myself and read comics and books and in general acted like a moping teenage boy. But it was fall in Wenonah. A wonderful time of year. And this year, just to spice things up, we began daily touch football games in the yard behind Jane Shiflet's house. Co-ed touch football. With some piling on and inappropriate laying on of hands. Things were stirring in my body. The hormonal soup was on the stove and coming up to boiling.

After an afternoon of boys and girls ostensibly playing sports I'd head home for dinner and then sit down with my family to watch tv. On a black and white tv. This was the year of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Bewitched. Gilligan's Island, Shindig, and Hullabaloo. The next day in school we'd all talk about the shows and the bands. Music. We were discovering music. Paul Revere and the Raiders. the Dave Clark Five. Motown! I'd read under my covers with a flashlight for awhile then off to sleep. Then back to Gatorland and my trials.

But it being fall there was also Halloween. Mischief Night. Mick and I would guard our house from eggers and keep kids from soaping our dad's car's windows. We'd lay in the bushes with a garden hose and soak anyone who came near. One year Dave Porter threw an egg at a house and blinded an old lady in one eye. My father was on the Juvenile Committee and at night he told us what had happened and how terrible it was and why we should never throw eggs on Mischief Night. We were suitably impressed and worried.

But the next night we'd don our costumes and set out with our trusty bags for goodies. Terry, Mick, Gary Condell, and I would walk from house to house, covering the entire half of town up to West St.

Back then the adults would take the time to guess your name and we took great pleasure in fooling them. What a strange thing that was, it seems almost like a Booth Tarkington tale. The whole town walking out at night. A town of wandering children with bags of candy. We should probably have been scared. But we weren't. The only thing that brought us in was our parents calling our names, time for bed, come home, come home. And home we went to sleep and dreams. Dreams of towns filled with wandering children dressed as monsters and ghouls, wandering in search of candy.

Fall and Gateway Regional

2008-09-20T17:45:00.003-04:00

Perhaps I should tell you more about my new school. Not the bickering and backbiting and meanderings of seventh graders but what my school looked like. Gateway was brand new. Brand motherfucking new. We had new lockers, new hallways, new teachers, new desks, and new classes. Instead of Science we had Earth Science. Instead of History we had Social Studies. Instead of Reading or Language Arts we had English. And we had to learn a new language. You got to pick your language. I picked French.

We also had new desks. The desks in Wenonah Elementary were old school. Wooden desks that were separate from the chairs. Desks that opened up and you put your books in them. Your books sat there all year unless you took them home for homework cuz you had the same seat all year long. Gateway had desks attached to chairs. The desks in Wenonah had been carved up and inked by years and years of students. Gateway and its desks were clean and free of taint.

Gateway was laid out like a grid. A long rectangle with a center entrance. At one end was the Auditorium and flanking that Wood Shop and Home Economics. At the other end the Cafeteria. Just before the Cafeteria was the Gym. The Gym had a huge dividing wall that could be opened for athletic events but was closed during gym classes because boys and girls did not exercise together except on rare occasions. God knows where that might lead.

This was an era where sports were the province of boys. The important sports were all boys; boys football, hardball, basketball, wrestling and track. Girls could do field hockey, girls basketball (note the "girls" in girls basketball), and softball. They might have had track but I doubt it.

The school had two floors and if I recall was divided in quadrants by class. Seventh graders were on the 2nd floor. I have no idea where everyone else was.

Our principal was Charles Korkuch and our superintendent was John Lelko. God only knows what a superintendent did then. We certainly had no clue. There were 32 teachers on the faculty. I spent few hours today looking at my yearbook trying to figure out who my teachers were that first year. Couldn't do it cuz they blurred together. Perhaps one of you can help. Over the next years I had nearly all of them for one class or another. When I returned in my thirties for a poetry in the schools gig most of them were still there. I don't know if that is sad or beautiful. Or both.

To be honest going through the yearbook was a trial. We all look like creatures from another century. And not the 20th. Children taking Personal Typing. Mechanical Drawing. The Dance Band! Irma Fean our school nurse. Object of ridicule for most of my later years in school. When basketball players feigned illness for a cheap time out we'd all shout: "Irma!, Irma!"

The pictures of the children are hideous. Giant beehives, huge ears poking out from the sides of heads, all the boys in sport coats, all the girls with head bands. We all look earnest and young and stupid. I think we were.

We were all jammed together in this school. Headed for the future and with no clue that everything we knew, everything our parents knew, would be turned on its head in 7 years. Jesus the world is strange.

Stranger still that at our reunion this summer most of the tiny photos from my yearbook in 1965 turned out to be my classmates in 1970. This was a world where no one left.

Next up on the blog...book reports! Scholastic achievement! Touch football with Jane Shiflet in the afternoon. Sex rears its ugly head and brings with it dances and fashion. Ugliness abounds.

The World of Gateway

2008-09-05T23:37:00.002-04:00

This was a new junior high school. In fact, it wasn't even finished. The gym wasn't quite done, the auditorium a work in progress, everything was new and half done and odd. But we were all there. Disgorged from our buses and thrown together. Several hundred students from four districts with little in common. Westville and National Park were largely working class, factory towns. Wenonah and Woodbury Heights more middle class. There were points where we all intersected and points where we veered widely apart.

I've been thinking about this first year for a while now. In part because it was a huge leap in my life and in part because I had to confront things I'd never had to confront before. No one knew me here. No one knew many many people. New friendships would be formed and old ones changed.

But for me the hardest part of seventh grade was going to my locker. Each day when I went to my locker a kid who I will leave nameless would confront me and assault me. We're talking punches and insults and general bullying. In Wenonah I'd feel comfortable dealing with this outside of the school but here there was no outside of the school. I was taught not to behave badly in school and fighting would be definitely a bad thing. I took my licks. I took punches to the stomach and arms and insults every day at the beginning and every day at the end. It was a bad, bad experience.

One of the boys who bullied me was in my gym class. Our gym class instructor was a man named Chuck Williamson. Mr. Williamson. Old school. Not a man prone to sympathy. Towards the end of the year we were playing softball at one of the newly completed ball fields and I was playing first base. The boy who bullied me stole second and I threw the ball hard to second. It drilled him dead center in the back. He turned and he and his lackey chased me for a good ten minutes before Mr. Williamson put a stop to it. Ten minutes. It didn't help my self esteem and it didn't make me a man. It made me a scared little rabbit running from a kid who'd flunked two grades and had two feet and fifty pounds on me. This was not fun.

The other part that was not fun was losing my friends.

This is harder. We continued to engage in play after school in Wenonah but in school they had new friends, cooler friends. The gap grew larger and larger. It would close in later years but it felt weird and was painful. I came to understand that growing up wasn't just about knowing new things but about losing old things. I've never been good at that and it always hurt.

The funny part is that all of us felt this way. Even the kids that bullied us. We were all in the same strange boat. Unmoored from our safe little towns. Our rituals. Our games. We invented new ones. Some nasty, some joyful, some stupid. But nonetheless we were on our own in this creation. There was no one there to tell us how it would be. No rules. No guides. Just knucleheads set loose. Bullies and bullied. Cool and uncool. Stupid and smart. Ugly and beautiful. And at the end of the day some Boy Scout furling the flag. Uncoolest of the uncool. A volunteer to stupidity.

Next post: the geography of Gateway

The New Class Struggle

2008-08-25T19:50:00.002-04:00

Before I continue my story I should correct a few minor issues that my beloved readers noted. First, that first year GRHS was only a Junior HS and the sending districts sent 7, 8, & 9 graders. After their 9^th grade year was up they moved onto Woodbury HS. Second, apparently, in Wenonah at least, you could choose either Woodbury or Pitman HS. Bob Thomas reports that in the case of one of his neighbors two siblings elected to go to different high schools.

But to get back to the matter at hand. We were to be divided in classes in our new found school As I mentioned I was in 7C. Naturally that means there was a 7A, 7B, 7D…and on to 7F. Similarly in 8th grade. We were also nominally assigned to homerooms based on our last names. The classes were divided based on tests we’d been given over the years, teacher evaluations, etc. 7C and 7E were college prep. The others…maybe not. Initially we were only vaguely aware of this structure but over the years it would become more and more apparent. This would have positive and negative consequences but mostly it meant smart kids and geeks hung with smart kids and geeks and greasers hung with greasers and jocks with jocks. The only time we all got mixed together was in the halls, the cafeteria, the auditorium, and gym class. This would have dire consequences for me in particular.

But more than my personal difficulties with the various groups of young men and women who had suddenly become my classmates there was the fracturing of long standing friendships from our old schools. Kids who once were my dearest friends found other, cooler, friends. Kids I barely paid attention to became my new friends. The small, close knit world of Wenonah Elementary was shattered. If I was smarter or more worldly or braver this would have been a time to reinvent myself. Instead, inside I was still Wacky Jiler, the Rough Tough Creampuff, and I was certain everyone in this new school knew it as well as my friends knew it. I was scrawny with a stupid haircut and clothes from G. Wayne Post's or Sears. I was fucked. And like every other knuckleheaded teenager I had no idea everyone else felt the same way. Of course, even if I did I wouldn't have the balls to use it in any intelligent, thoughtful way. Self knowledge for teenagers is not always a good thing. That's why football heroes act like arrogant assholes. Or why geeky nerds trudge the halls with their heads down hoping no one notices. It's dangerous to be noticed sometimes.

Bluebird Buses and Me

2008-08-23T04:22:00.002-04:00

The crisp smell in the air. The morning a little darker. The trip to Pitman to pick out our school clothes. The sure and perfect signs we were going to school. And we were. To Gateway Regional High School. Woodbury High School was too small to accommodate the children of the baby boom and thus was born GRHS. Woodbury Heights, National Park, Westville, and Wenonah all sent their children to GRHS. If memory served the first classes were just 7th and 8th graders. We would be the first classes to go elsewhere; our parents had all gone to Woodbury HS but we would be part of the new generation. We were a little social experiment.
For the little knuckleheads from Wenonah it was to be our first bus ride to school. Our first interactions with the larger world. Our first time out of the little world we grew up in. We got our class assignments, our instructions on how to get on the bus and then on the first Tuesday after Labor Day we got on the bus. A Bluebird yellow school bus.
We boarded our bus at the corner of Jefferson and Mantua Avenue. In the beginning my friends came to our house first and then on to the bus. That would end soon. The bus took us up Mantua, made a left on Glassboro Rd and then a right through Deptford, past the pig farms, till at last we reached our mostly completed school. I say mostly because the auditorium, the auto shop, and the gym were not yet complete. They would be soon but we had to go to school so fuck it.
We ate in the cafeteria. Thirty five cents bought you a lunch and a milk. A dime bought an ice cream sandwich. There was no soda or salad or ice tea. Just lunch and milk.
It was all very exciting. I was assigned to class 7C. I was to stay in that class for most of my HS life. I can remember most of my fellow classmates by alphabetical order because i heard it time and time again. My memory begins at the L's. Lundquist, Maddox, Parker, Percival, Springer, Stens, Trocolli, Wernig, Williams, Wiler, Zahn. I'm sure I've fucked it up and someone out there will correct me. As they should. Lora Banks, John Camp,and all the others before Gary Lundquist are lost to the fog of memory. But we were all joined together in this great experiment. Separated by some weird system based on intelligence and personality that was established by tests we didn't even realize we were taking. Little lab rats in madras shirts and khaki pants sitting in neat little rows waiting to learn the new facts of life. And we would. And we would.

Sweet days of summer

2008-08-09T14:34:00.004-04:00

Okay, they're not always sweet. But this summer, the summer of 1964, the summer before we entered Gateway Regional High School was my last blissful summer. Summer in Wenonah was always rich. But also filled with dread and the sure knowledge school was coming. Wenonah summers are hot and humid. Sometimes it feels like you're walking around in a swimming pool with trees in it. We returned from California ready for the rest of the summer and like all rest of the summers it stretched wide before us.
We could go to the pool, or ride our bikes, or play guns, or kick the can, or the Gun Game, but either way there were a million things to do. And we did them but by mid-August time had shifted into a weird sort of warp. On the one hand it was rushing forward with a terrible pace bringing the fall and school with it. On the other hand it had slowed to a near crawl. We'd exhausted all the fun in the world and nothing was left except Risk and Monopoly.
Oh, sure, we got to vote on the name of the new Gateway athletic teams. The mascot. Woodbury was "The Thundering Herd", Deptford was the "Spartans", West Deptford the "Eagles" and we became for reasons I've never, ever understood, the "Gators". For some insane reason alliteration triumphed over location, desire, and anything remotely related to the idea of a school mascot. "Hoyas" makes more sense than "Gators" (a little snide nudge at Lundquist there). There are no alligators in South Jersey. Maybe the occasional rattler or water moccasin, or garter snake. some toads and frogs. Box turtles. Catfish and sunnys and carp. But alligators? You'd have to go to South Carolina to just see one. We were bummed. What about the Jersey Devil, or the Gladiators?
Nope.
"The Gateway Gators" with some natty little cartoon of a gator for us to stare at blankly.
After that it was just a waiting game.
A waiting game spent on my porch with Mick and Sam Stewart and Chris DeHart and Terry Fleming and Gary Condell. A waiting game spent conquering the world or else taking over the now decrepit Atlantic City. Sure, we fucked with the games. We combined two, three Risk games to create huge amounts of available armies. We also used rules from Chris' original Risk which decreed each throw of the dice killed but one army. This insured epic, lengthy, battles.
We did the same with Monopoly. Bags of money were everywhere, like in the Hague administration in Jersey City. Hotels sat two and three high on a property. We played on, we played on.
My brother Mick, for some stupid reason, always tried to take Asia. Gary Condell was in love with America. Me, I preferred to take Australia and stack up box after box of armies waiting for armageddon. And it would come, it would come. Then, when I'd exhausted my opponents armies I'd sweep out across the board and ruin everyone's dreams. We'd begin again. Broken and bruised but ready to battle for days, weeks, even if that's what it took.
And it did. The games sat on the porch day after day waiting for us to hunker down, pick up the dice, and launch our evil little dreams.
Risk is a game where everyone eventually ends up hating everyone else. No other game elicits the deep level of personal hate that this game does. It was like taking some evil drug everyday for weeks.
Years later I taught a poetry group consisting of teachers. One of the teachers wrote a poem about a game of Risk between herself, her new boyfriend, and a newlywed couple. At the end of the game the wife is sobbing in another room, her boyfriend storms out to buy cigarettes and she and the husband share a brief sexual interlude. The last line was "I was Queen of the World". Indeed.
We battled and schemed and waited. Waited for the doors to open in our brand new school. Waited to meet the dozens of strangers from the four sending districts. Waited for the unknown. It would come. It would come. Till then my armies are massed in Indonesia for a final battle against Gary Condell and the Asian hordes.

Walking the Boards

2008-08-06T21:41:00.002-04:00

So, in theory I'm done for awhile with this acting thing. With this play. With my past. What does that mean exactly? I don't know. I know that each time I do it I'm seduced by the freedoms of memorization. I know that each time I do it I sense the power of the things I said another way and enjoy the saying of those things. People after the last performance praised the 'authenticity of my performance". What is that?
As a poet I know what I've left out. Here are some things...my nurse Maria, the man who brought my meals, Ron, the woman from visiting nurses, Caroline. What I've left out is their deep commitment to my return to health. No. To my acknowledgement of illness and the ways we return to health. I leave them out all the time. As though they were never there. I slight my brothers and my father and my mother and my sister and my friends. It's always about me and my indominatable spirit. Hah.
It was my selfishness that impeded my return to the world and it was their unselfish love that allowed my return. I acknowledge my fears and weaknesses but not the fears and weaknesses of my friends and family and nurses and doctors.
Let me say this. It is easy to get up in front of people and say you almost died. It is much harder to hold that person up. And hold me up they did. Cranky and angry and sad and difficult as I was they comforted me and gave me courage and strength.
I think this is a way of looking at your life. We think we blunder through the world alone. We don't. The whole time there is a web of kindness that keeps us whole.
So what.
So you should sing their praises and worship their weaknesses and strengths and give them the knowledge they saved you. As they will save others. As you must save others. As we all do, almost by accident everyday.
God Bless those who saved me. God Bless those who never knew.

Frost Place

2008-08-03T22:06:00.002-04:00

I've just returned from Franconia, NH and the Frost Place. I spent three wonderful days talking about poetry, arguing about poetry, and yelling about poetry. It was marvelous. I drove up with Cat Doty and we yakked for hours. I don't think I stopped yakking till I got home to Johanna.
If you're a poet and you value words then you should go to the Frost Place at least once for their Festival of Poetry. It's a gas. Plus you get to hang out at Robert Frost's house and listen for ghosts.
Now it's back to killing bugs and talking to rich people about mice. Life is hell. If any of you have the time or inclination I'd love to see you at one of the performances of my one man play...in this case only one night is me. The rest is young people pretending to be me. And doing it well.
Life can be scary but life is never dull.

Ventura on my Mind

2008-08-02T17:23:00.000-04:00

Well, we arrived in Ventura, safe & sound. But in my case, angry. Angry at my haircut, angry at my parents, angry, pretty much, at the universe.
My aunt lived in a new development that butted up to lemon groves. She was happy, married, with new hip California friends. Instead of calling her Gert for Gertrude they called her Gigi.
She also had way better tv stations than us and this was to prove my escape. Instead of visiting stupid mission churches I'd stay home and watch movies. No messy human interaction, no one to see my crewcut, my uncool self.
Of course, my standards dropped when it came to Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm, but all rules are made to be broken. Even mine.
At Disneyland Ted got a Derby hat which made him adorably, insufferably cute. At a surfing tournament he was besieged by young (girl) reporters. My blood boiled.
We did find that skateboarding was much easier here than in Wenonah. No gravel & macadam streets, just smooth asphalt for blocks & no one outside in the day.
Alas our little tour had to end and back we drove to Wenonah in murky, hot midsummer. The return trip uneventful, lost, no things to recall.
It was time to begin the long slide into the hell of Gateway Regional HS.

Play, Robert Frost, et al

2008-07-30T04:10:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!
Please if you're planning on seeing the play send Steven a note. His email is steven.mccasland@gmail.com. I'm off to Franconia, NH for the Frost Place Festival of Poetry. This means I'm incommunicado for a few days. I'll finish my tales of California upon my return. In the meantime...see you in the funny papers!
Jack

All the World's a Stage and I'm stuck on it

2008-07-27T17:52:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone! Just a note to let you know I'll be performing in the one act play Steven McCasland and I put together. Here are the particulars:

FUN BEING ME
by Jack Wiler, adapted for the stage by Steven McCasland

Jack works as an exterminator for ACME exterminating. But he goes home to write poetry in Jersey City in an old armchair and a window looking out over Palisades Avenue. On top of it all, Jack has AIDS. Through illness, he rediscovers himself and reclaims his life. Jack's beautiful book of poetry sings and made a perfect adaptation for the stage.The one-man play was workshopped in April and starred Jack Wiler in the autobiographical piece. For four nights only, Group Therapy revisits the revamped text, with new poetry by Jack. Each night, a different actor will step on stage and fill Jack's shoes. Gender and race do not matter in his tale. Join us for an exciting and emotional journey.

August 5-8, Pace University's W501 Blackbox Space, 8pm
1 Pace Plaza, New York, NY 10038
[Across from City Hall Park, Pace is located at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge
and is accessible by the 2, 3, A, C, J, M, Z, 4 and 5 trains.]

All tickets at the door are $10.
Reservations are STRONGLY encouraged as space is limited.

The performance schedule is as follows:
August 5, 8pm: Jack Wiler
August 6, 8pm: Martin Cohen
August 7, 8pm: Steven McCasland (Adaptor/Director)
August 8, 8pm: Kerrie Bond

Directed by Steven McCasland
Lighting and set designs by Steven McCasland

To reserve your ticket, simply respond to this e-mail: steven.mccasland@gmail.com or call (631)-374-7886.

We look forward to seeing you at the theater and wish you a happy, healthy summer!

Mutant Rats and Me

2008-07-18T14:32:00.001-04:00

In case you didn't know it (and you probably didnt') I was part of a History Channel documentary on "Mutant Rats". Total bullshit but kind of fun to watch. When I sound like the most normal person on camera you know something's wrong. Check out the genuine New York denizens. It's a real gas! Here's the link to the YouTube postings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iksnp81UHU
Have fun!

The Western Edge

2008-07-16T22:27:00.002-04:00

Join our merry band of travelers as we move west. First to Rolla Missouri. What a wonderful place! And what a glorious Holiday Inn. For the first time we are into the rhythms of the road. We disembark from our Chevy wagon and pile into the pool and thence to dinner. Candied apples! I'd never had candied apples but we had them at dinner. Everyone was nice and pleasant and all of us were nice and pleasant despite our crewcuts and the trip and the closeness.
Next day is Amarillo Texas. Not so nice but it's called Amarillo and now we're officially in a place not like the east coast. Dry plains and Mexicans and weird shit. We're going west on Route 66 and from here the trip gets good and bad and fun. My dad never stops but after Amarillo we drive through desert and visit the Petrified Forest and the Great Canyon and I almost faint in the desert it's so hot in the car. This is going to another planet. Then we wind up a mountain pass and we're in Flagstaff, AZ. Pheonix Arizona, don't forget Winona, Kingman, Denver, San Bernadino. It's Route motherfucking 66!! We've watched the TV show, we're entranced, we're hot as motherfucking hell. Remember, no AC.
Then after Flagstaff it's a long slow coast into Las Vegas. My grandmother and aunt love Las Vegas. So do me and Mick. We know what to do with slots from Terry Flemings basement. We're pumping nickels in the slot machine in our hotel and we're making real cash! Not like Terry's house where you had to give it all back. Then we're shut down. Apparently only grown ups are allowed to lose nickels. Bummer of bummers. But it's Las Vegas! Neon and heat and gambling and then the long ride into southern California and Ventura and my Aunt's house. Where I would turn into every dickhead teenager in the world. More on Friday.
Surfers, skateboards, Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, me watching TV and not having fun.

First Leg

2008-07-10T21:03:00.002-04:00

Okay, back to the trip, back to 1964, back, basically to hell on wheels. To refresh your memory we have me and Mick and Ted in the back with our heads buzzed, my midgety baby sister who's only three, my Grandmother Glading (Nonny), my Aunt Gersh, my Dad and my Mom jammed in a 1963 black Chevy station wagon with a rear seat driving west on the PA Tpk heading towards the promised land. LA. Or to be more precise my Aunt Gert's house in Ventura.
We have a U Haul storage rack on the roof to hold our shit and my Dad and my Aunt are the primary drivers. My mom is teaching us all stupid car games to keep us from killing each other and we're motoring along at 60-65 mph to heaven. Our first stop is scheduled for Columbus, OH or thereabouts. We not only achieve that, we break down in Columbus, OH. If I remember correctly we blew a head gasket which necessitated emergency repairs which somehow were completed in enough time for us to leave the next morning. But we were delayed.
For the old man this was a disaster. Delay was tantamount to being in hell. We spent the next night some place in Indiana. In a Holiday Inn. We spent all our nights in Holiday Inns. For a good reason. My old man figured out we knuckleheads would immediately go to the pool, my Grandmother and Aunt or some variation would take care of Mary Louise and Dad and Mom could go to the bar for a cocktail to recover from eight hours of driving hell.
We were not good children on the road. We really weren't good children not on the road. As I've mentioned previously Mick and I fought like cats and dogs. Well, that only got worse in close quarters. Plus Ted had finally found someone he could pick on. Top that off with the old man and Gersh arguing about routes, speed, gas, etc and you have a toxic stew.
Tomorrow we end up in Missouri. Which we all liked. Then Amarillo. But, more to come. For tonight, sleep tight my little readers and dream about all the nightmare trips you and your families ventured on. Remember having to pee and needing ice cream and getting backhanded somehow from your Dad in the front seat. Life was wonderful and we were evil little monsters.
With no hair.

Reunion and all that

2008-07-06T17:27:00.002-04:00

Okay. It was ungodly cool. But it was so cool I need a couple days to think. In the meantime shoutouts to Ruthie Felch, Sheri Wakley, Sheila McGlauglin, Suzy, Linda Lewis, Joyce Murphy, Terri Sergonne, Joyce Hoefers, Karyl Carter, Bruce Zahn, Grant Karsner, Terry Fleming, Chris & Steph DeHart, Jim Combs, oh shit...I'm almost mentioning everyone. Oh, Jill Springer. Don Davis. Jeff Schultz. And more. And more.
We all know it was weird and cool and disorienting but aren't we all better people now? Love you all! More to come! Manana!
Muchas Gracias for the best night!
Barb Conway... You rock babe! Dottie...You too! And Margie...Wow!
Life is but a dream.

The 4th and all that

2008-07-05T00:09:00.003-04:00

Before we rejoin my Mom and Dad, my Grandmother, Aunt Gersh, Mary Lou, Ted, Me & Mick we take a brief side trip to Wenonah in the year 2008. It is fifty years since I moved here with my family and as with most years I made my way to Mantua Ave for the parade at 8:45. Well, actually, I got up at 5:12, showered, threw my shit in the trunk and drove to Wenonah at 5:50 to arrive at 7:50 for the parade at 8:45. It was raining a bit but I was smart and even though I was stupid and left my umbrella I went to CVS and bought one. So I spent a few minutes walking the streets of Wenonah, past my old house, my grandmother's house, the Fleming's house, the Condell's, the homes of Sharon Hoffman and Kathy Collinge, Robby Cook's house and then up to the park. I spent a few minutes in the park reading the names on the memorials to those who served their country.
Not so many in WWI but around 34 young men in WWII and then those in Korea and Vietnam. The WWII memorial is hard to look at. So many men on there were the fathers of my friends. There are stories that were common across America but up close it takes you back a bit.
Then I called Barb Conway and went to wait at her house for her husband Charlie (a fireman) to call and tell us whether the parade was on or not. On it was...so we were off. Off to the best 4th ever! Everyone was there Chris and Steph DeHart, Terry and Arlene Fleming, Dottie Chattin, Suzy Parker, my brother Ted, Ron Fay, you know, if I listed all their names that's all this post would be. The Bonsal Blues and the Hobo Band faced off in front of O'Connor's! I spent a good half hour talking shit with Victor Anderson about the Buddha and our wild acid trip of summer 1971.
Jim Maddox and I spent a great deal of time talking with Carey DeGeer about blogs and writing. Beer flowed. Fortunately there's a Porto-Potty at the O'Connor's!
Then on to the Firehouse. Bought my mug, got my three tickets, and there was the whole rest of the Wenonah universe!
Three wonderful things happened there. The first was that several people who I didn't know, or barely knew came up to me and said how much they liked the blog. Sweet. One wonderful woman even asked after Johanna! Very sweet!
The second was I found out I was on the History Channel! I'd thought I got left on the cutting room floor. Now my ego is the size of Chicago!
The third was I found out that Judy Kiernan had died. Now this might not seem wonderful news but in fact it was. Judy was a much picked on woman from my class in school. She was large, slow, and socially awkward. We smart guys loved making jokes about her. We were assholes.
Anyway Judy's ambition in the yearbook was to be happy in the convent. I remember going home one college vacation and reading this while I mega high on acid. It was the saddest thing I ever read. So to get to the happy part...Judy died in the convent. One hopes she was happy.
We thought we were such smart kids. Fools. This woman who we all humiliated had more depth and courage than any of us. Tonight at the reunion I'll lift a glass in her memory...and in memory of all those who seem broken or lost. They redeem this world.
So, enough mush! After the firehouse we repaired to the Telford for food and the party just kept growing...Jim Combs and his wife, Charlie from the firehouse, Suzy, her brother Billy, Terry, Arlene, Chris, Steph all of us talking and talking and talking. It augers well for tonight.
After the Telford I went to my niece's. She was having a keg party. No one, well one guy with his 20 yr old girlfriend, was even close to my age. They were heedless and happy and smoking and drinking and it was like being in Wenonah in 1971 all hopped up on our energy and power! Beautiful.
Then tired from standing I went back to Mick's and fell asleep at 7:30pm. Old man Wiler. Ha ha!
Tomorrow I'll give you the straight dope on our reunion. Oh, and for Terry and Suzy: Lundquist you chicken, get on a plane and get your ass out here!
Peace!

The End of Days

2008-07-01T19:39:00.002-04:00

Okay, you've probably noticed I haven't written shit. Because I haven't. Because it's summer. Because there are tons of bugs to kill. Because I'm a lazy fuck.
But I'm willing to move forward and in order to do so I'm skipping most of 6th grade. it was fun but dull and not a challenge. Yes, I discovered girls but not in real earnest till the summer and the next few years. So fuck it, it's gone.
But I think it's important to note that the end of 6th grade was the beginning of a rise in music that nobody was ready for. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Motown, the Dave Clark Five, and on and on. Plus these bands all looked different than the rest of America. Long hair for one. Wild clothes for another. We weren't stupid. We caught on.
Mick and I spent most of 1964 trying to grow our hair. The clothes were out but we thought we could muster Beatle haircuts. We were doing modestly well when my family decided to go to California the summer before 7th grade. For reasons only an evil parent can explain my old man decided to give us both crewcuts the day before we left. We were going to the land of surfers and the Beach Boys with shaved heads! Disaster, Ruination! Humiliation! Total Humiliation. We were mega fucked.
Plus we were going to the land of cool with our parents and grandmother and aunt. Not cool. In a station wagon. "Little GTO" this was not. We're talking a chevy with a roll down window in the rear, no AC, and a UHaul storage thingie on the roof. Basically pre-teen hell.
So we bundled up all our shit at some god forsaken hour. My old man believed in leaving early so it was probably 6am and off we went. Me, Mick, Ted, Mary, Nonny, Aunt Gersh, my old man and my mom. Things could only go downhill from there. And they did...more to come!

Poetry, Theater, Money and life

2008-06-19T20:23:00.002-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit. I've been involved in two big projects. One was to put together a large proposal for pest control at a large NY University and the other was to finish the manuscript for my third book. I accomplished both but boy was I beat. Each of these projects carries the same fears and anxieties.
Did i do my best? Will the powers that be appreciate and accept what I have done? Will I be successful?
Jeez Louise!
But other than that things are wonderful. Saturday is the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, next Sunday the Gay Pride Parade in NYC, and then the week after the 4th of July in Wenonah followed by our goofy little reunion. I can't wait for any of these events. Well, actually I'm not psyched about Gay Pride but the boat ride that evening.
I hope I'll see many of you in Wenonah on the 4th and at the Adelphia on the 5th.
Later, Gators!

Hip Boots and Unhip Guys

2008-06-12T19:15:00.003-04:00

Ah, the vagaries of posting on your blog. My dopey attempt at humor has failed miserably. Claudia is peeved and no one is amused. Such are the trials of men. I know my swamp trudging twelve year old self would have been totally enamored of this ad. My grown up 56 year old self is mostly amused that people think hip boots and fishing gear can be sold by hot babes with hardly any clothes on. But I am after all the editor who recommended we put a vintage photo from the 50's of a woman holding up two halved melons in front of her breasts as a cover for Long Shot. I should have recalled the near total lack of positive responses. I'm like a rat that keeps pushing the same button and getting shocked. Oh well.
My reunion is a mere two weeks away. I'm excited and scared. All of us are old guys and women now. Some of us have grown in wonderful ways and I'm sure some of us are exactly the same. It should be a gas. I'm looking forward to lots of Dave Clark Five and Motown and toasts and mad stupidity.
Meantime I'm almost done my 3rd book and am totally pumped about that. Life is proceeding fast apace. As it should, as it should.

Hip Boots

2008-06-11T16:31:00.003-04:00

Bob Thomas wrote in with the proper definitions of hip boots vs waders. Waders are chest high and hip boots come only to the top of the thighs. Waders are used by stream fishermen in particular. Bob also sent me a nice little ad for hip boots. It may be a tad politically incorrect but it's still a hoot.

Obama, Hillary, et al

2008-06-05T19:09:00.002-04:00

You'll probably notice the hopeful little logo next to everything else. I was a big Clinton fan but now it's time to change gears and engage the enemy in his lair. Barack is our man and I urge all of you to support him and his campaign. It's time to toss the nitwits out of Washington and pay some attention to what's going on here at home.

Imps; reimagined

2008-06-05T18:59:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, a few weeks ago I posted a poem I wrote in response to my play. I've rewritten it and will post it below. Also, some news! Steven and I are doing four nights of "Fun Being Me" at PACE in early August. The dates are: 8/5,6,7,&8. I'll be doing the performance on the 5th but some marvelous young actors will be taking my place (thank the Lord!) on the subsequent nights. I'd love to see you at one of the performances. I'm writing some new material to enlarge the work and think you'll enjoy this night of theater. For more info stay tuned in the coming weeks!
Meantime, here are my little imps:

Dreaming of Imps

I was very sick for a time.
I came so close to death it seemed almost like I was dead.
I spent much too much time with demons and angels.
I ate too little and slept too little and sweated through the night.
I woke each morning drenched from my dreams.

Last night there was an imp in my bed.
Well, not really an imp;
a small demon, I guess.
I woke up and must have frightened it
because it scurried off to hide in the shadows.
But I saw it.
The color of a young roach.
Twisted.
Mean.
Then it was gone.

I haven’t been sick for years.
Not like before anyway.
Oh, a flu now and then, or a sore throat,
but that’s been it.
Till that imp leaped up and licked my face

There was a time such things were with me daily.
Demons and imps and shrouded ghouls.
Lingering by my bedside as I lay sleeping,
dreaming terrible dreams of a good life.
A life where I had a job and friends and ate food
in restaurants.
A life filled with nice clothing and cars.
People who laughed at my jokes and forgave my foibles.
The demons watched me twitch in sleep and
giggled at my travails.

Perhaps they never left.
Perhaps I’m still desperately ill.
This life is the dream I dream.
My car, my dogs, my new suits, my beloved.
All just fodder for their little jokes.
There should be an insecticide for demons and imps.
There should be some poison I could set out
for them to find and eat.
It might be unpleasant to find their swollen little bodies but
except for a day or two of stink it would be better to have them gone.

But it seems to me that there is no poison they wouldn’t love.
No death they couldn’t cherish.
No desire or whim that wouldn’t amuse them.
Dreams and imps.
Poisons and wishes.
All things to think about as we kneel at the foot of the bed
to say our little prayers.

That's it for tonight gang. Go back to sleep and dream happy dreams. I'm getting ready for a day at Sandy Hook and Gunnison Beach on Sunday. See you all there! Of course you'd have to be naked:)

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

2008-06-02T20:40:00.001-04:00

I might be wrong on the timeline here but I don't think so. The Christmas of 1963 brought me my 1st pair of hip boots. Waders is another name for them, especially among fishermen, but for us they were hip boots.

They were my best gift ever! Better than army men, better than sleds, better than money. Hip boots gave us mastery of the swamps! Now the water & the mud could not keep us back! Now we could go anywhere! As long as it didn't go over the top of our boots. Then there was a problem. A boot filled with mud & water was not a good thing. Especially in the winter.

The boots I got were black and from Sears or maybe from Polsky’s Army Navy in Woodbury. They came to the top of your thighs and you put them on over your regular shoes, kind of like a giant pair of galoshes. I had many pairs over the years, sometimes because I was growing but more often because I would get a hole in them. Even a small hole was a disaster as your foot quickly filled with cold, cold water. Once you had a hole in the boot they were shot and we did any number of stupid things designed to make holes. Running headlong through sticker bushes for one; walking through mud with no thought as to what might be beneath the mud for another.

But the boots freed us from the tyranny of mud and water. Where once we turned back from mud flats and pools of water now we could walk straight through! We could even cross the Mantua Creek at a few shallow points at low tide. Of course there were other difficulties. Hip boots were not possessed of any real grip. In fact they were sort of like wearing giant ice skates when you were walking on slippery underwater surfaces. What sort of surfaces? Well, say, half submerged logs or rocks by the trestle. That sort of thing. So you’d be walking out where disaster lurked, feet dry as a bone and then, boom you slipped off the log and were drenched to the bone. This would invariably necessitate a run back to the house, to the basement, to strip out of wet clothes, then race upstairs to change into dry clothes and out the door. Behind, in the basement were the wet jeans stinking of swamp mud and swamp water. Mom loved that.

The other big problem with hip boots was quick mud. If you got caught in some really nasty mud you might be up over your knees when it first got you. You’re fifty feet from any solid ground with your friends staring at you like you’re a knucklehead and you’re sinking slowly into the deep swamp. Then they’d form a little chain and with a stick or some shit reach out to you and pull you free. Leaving your boot sticking up in the mud. Like the foot in Fargo in the wood chipper but with almost the same consequences. You had to get it out or there’d be hell to pay. This would mean an hour or so of calculations, planning and effort that would eventually pay off and leave you with wet, muddy socks and shoes trudging up Mantua Ave dragging a boot caked in mud. What fun!

Hip boots eventually led us to our next money making enterprise. Trapping animals for their pelts. But more on that in my next post. If you’re squeamish about dead muskrats and river rats don’t worry. We sucked at trapping them.

Getting Bigger

2008-05-23T19:18:00.003-04:00

Here's something we hardly ever talk about. Size. Well, maybe we talk about it a lot but not in the way I'm interested in. I'm thinking more about that time when you start to be the same size as everyone else. In 1st Grade and up until 6th I spent most of my time looking at people's thighs or waists. As a consequence I thought nearly 90% of the planet was made up of grown ups. Parents. Figures of Authority. If you towered over me you knew what the fuck was going on. If you were my size or smaller you were like me. Lost. Confused. Stupid.
It's kind of like when you realized how to speak English (assuming of course you're from the USA). First you're a baby and then one day, like a little miracle, you understand everything people are saying. One day you're staring at knees and everyone is a grownup and the next you're looking in their eyes or their chests and you start to realize there are hierarchies of adulthood. Of course, you're still a kid, but you start to get that 8th graders don't really have any clout in the world beyond being able to kick your ass. And that your mother is different in status then say the lady at the supermarket. You start to see teachers as having personalities that you can manipulate and control. Oh, what a wonderful moment.
But just like that moment when you realize how to ask for milk instead of burbling some incomprehensible syllables you still don't really get it all. That my friends is a blessing and a curse. Not so much for 6th Graders. We were consigned to one of the outer circles of Hell. But say when you're a Senior in High School and you have a crush on your teacher and she's talking with you at graduation sort of like a girl talks to a boy. This can be very confusing and it's confusing because you're a dumb schmoo. You think she's a grown up but she's really only 4 years or maybe only 3 years older than you. In just ten years you'll start to have trouble figuring out how old people are if they're between 20 and 30 but right then, with a little beer in your gut, it just seems odd and you don't know why.
What if you knew everything right then in 6th grade? Would that be a blessing or a curse. Part of me votes for curse. I'd no doubt have told some older kid he was a stupid jerk and get flattened for it. Another part of me votes for blessing. We were all dumb chowderheads stumbling through the halls of Wenonah Elementary. Students, teachers, administrators. Trying to do our best and fucking it up too often. But some of us were big and some of us were small and for Wenonah that was a good enough dividing line.

Other Stuff to Think About

2008-05-20T19:47:00.002-04:00

I'm a little lazy and consumed with Spring fever lately and haven't posted. My sincere apologies to my readers. Posts will come next week. We have much to talk about. But in the meantime I have a couple personal items to put out into the world.
The first is my friend Baron Wormser's new book, "The Poetry Life: Ten Stories", is out on the Cavankerry imprint. This is a gorgeous book, rich and clear and wonderful. For the reader and writer of poetry it strikes a chord few books can even hope to strike. Baron has used the voices of ten invented people, one of whom resembles him, to talk about a poet has impacted on them and the world. The voices are wonderful, the understanding of poetry and how it is apprehended is done without affectation or bullshit and because of that the poetry itself is like a clear bell. What a grand, glorious book! I urge you to buy this book. It's not just some dumb book about writing. It's fun and compelling and filled with passion and emotion. To quote my first wife Kathy, "I laughed, I cried, I ran the full gamut of human emotion". You should buy this motherfucking book.
Second, I know a lot of you folks from the Frost Place check in now and again. It is the 30th anniversary of the Festival and Jim and this years crop of faculty and staff would love to have all of us in attendance. I'm journeying to the North Country once more to immerse myself in words and I urge all of you to dig deep in your jar of pennies and come up with the cash to go. I think it will be a wonderful week and I hope you will join us. If you can't come as a participant then come as an auditor or a visitor or a friend but come, come!
Finally, to all you Gateway Gators: It's crunch time you chowderheads! Time to put up or shut up! Go to the dopey site and register and then RSVP or if you're so old fashioned and weird that you mistrust the internet then mail Joyce Murphy Kiner a check but show the fuck up on July the 5th for our wacky little reunion! I know you're old, I know you feel you're a miserable failure, your kids are assholes and you look like shit, but really that would be true of all of us so show the fuck up! You could be dead in a year! Plus, what if you're the best lawyer in Sioux City or one kicking Jaguar mechanic or maybe you do orthodonture like nobody's business, this is your chance to make everybody that treated you like shit for six years feel like a moron. I know I can't wait to line dance but that's my weird thing. I know Suzy is wishing we had the Geator with the Heater there but we'll always have the Dovell's and that, my friend, is a fact. Sign up! Sign up now! If I can tell all of you I have AIDS then you can drag your fat bald headed ass to Deptford and drink a few cocktails and have a great time!
Well, that's it for now. Time for my favorite movie, Rear Window.

Little Things

2008-05-06T22:48:00.002-04:00

It's nice to see the world from the standpoint of big stuff that happens. But honestly President's don't die every day and other things matter more. What kind of things?
Things we smell and taste. Things we eat. Things we do.
Like Testors glue.
Like the smell of swamp mud on your boots. Like the way the leaves act right before a thunderstorm. Like when you go away for summer vacation and when you come home the world is a deep, hot, humid green. Or sneakers. Clean and white at the beginning of summer and then by the end a dull gray. Their deep funk. Or hiding in some little place in a game that no one knows about and watching the spiders and smelling the mildew. Or clambering into the sewers for an adventure that isn't really an adventure because it's just a pipe and it goes no where. Nowhere.
Like lying in your bed watching a summer storm. Lightening. Thunder. Wind. Trees thrashing this way and that. Or the smell of your grandmothers house. Or going into a friends house and it's not like any place you've ever been before. There's the smell of hairspray or cologne or cleaning agents and you step back for a second. Shocked. Seduced.
Or spring erupting with a magnificence you can't understand and the stink of skunk cabbage and the deep mud and dead animals strewn on the swamp.
Crayons. The smell of wax. Paste. The way it tastes.
All the candies in the world.
Neats foot oil.
Hay.
Tar.
Your mothers cigarettes.
Incense at the church at high mass and it's stink.
Floor wax.
Termiticides in the crawl spaces of your house.
Must.
Death.
Life.
Sweat.
Soap.
All the different kinds of soap.
Lava.
Handsoap.
Moss.
Lilacs
Your mothers perfume.
Chanel number five.
The books in the basement of the library.
Your aunt as you sleep next to her.
Dirt.
Clay, which is different than dirt and loam and top soil and swamp mud and leaves and new mown grass.
The way the air smells just before a winter storm.
Lightning.
Fear.
Rubber.
Burning rubber.
Rubber cement.
Rubber balls.
The truck running down the alley behind the post office spraying for mosquitoes.
Paint thinner.
Paint.
Shellac.
Chrome cleaner.
Gasoline.
Leaves burning on the curb.
Bleach.
The dead mouse in the crawl space.
So many things with so little reason. Except they shape your life.
Except they shape your life.
The loud cry of the fire whistle.

Sixth Grade Report Card

2008-05-02T19:59:00.002-04:00

How smart was I. Just you look!

The Digging Yard

2008-05-02T19:39:00.002-04:00

Behind our garage was a small yard. At one end was a black maple and at the foot of the maple there was always a compost heap. There was a path between the rear of the garage, the tree and the heap and then a stretch of ground roughly, twenty five feet by twelve that was "The Digging Yard". Oh! The Digging Yard. This was the center of huge parts of our life. It was here I destroyed my brother Ted's beloved Tonka trucks. It was here we built huge oil drilling landscapes of used pipes and trucks and it was here that we dug and dug and dug. We loved digging and we loved digging in the digging yard.
In 1963 we all went to see "The Great Escape". It was the coolest war movie we'd ever seen. It had motorcycles, valor, Steve McQueen, Nazi's, motorcycles, English cool, Steve McQueen and marching music. We loved that movie. And of course, of course we had to make it true in our back yard. So we began to dig holes and then tunnels between the holes. And as we got better the holes got deeper, the tunnels longer and more complex. We were chowderheads covered in filth and having the time of our lives.
All of us dug the holes. Mick and Ted, Chris and Terry, Robbie Hill and Eddie Mossop, all the little brothers and neighborhood wanna be's were all there with shovels and pails and dirty faces.
Our exploits culminated in one glorious giant hole. We dug till we hit water. Now, in many parts of the United States that could mean digging for hundreds of feet but in Wenonah which was barely above sea level according to the US Geological Survey marker sunk outside the Grosscup building that meant going down roughly twelve feet. Which while it may not be much is a great distance in a yard 12x25 when you're barely four feet tall to begin with and many of you are between 3 & 4 feet tall. The hole began wide and expansive and narrowed and narrowed and narrowed until finally after days and days of labor we hit water.
Water!
We felt like we'd struck gold! Like we'd understood some great principle of Geography or Geology! We were explorers in a downward spiral. We were engineeers. We were builders. We were escape artists. Soldiers. Geniuses. We were also very dirty and stupid.
It turns out our giant hole wasn't a good idea. Joel Cook fell in and all the little kids panicked and that led to my dad stumbling out from his cocktail to say "What the hell...?" and then all the dirt went back. I think it could be said that Joel Cook functioned as the weird conscience of our stupid behaviors since everytime we did something that would get us in trouble it was Joel that revealed the trouble and caused the punishment. He was an odd boy but useful.
I should mention that after the giant hole our attraction, or at least Mick and my attraction, waned. My parents began to use the digging yard for a straggly vegetable garden. But for years after, as they tilled the soil, the rotted plastic corpses of small army men came to the surface. Like some weird field in France. Men clutching grenades and crouched with semi-automatics, buried for years in rich loam, then thrust into the light of 1970's daylight. Like Japanese soldiers on deserted islands long after WWII has ended. They remained. Brave guardians of our misspent youth.

Things we didn't know we'd learn; 1963

2008-04-27T00:23:00.002-04:00

I know what you're thinking. I know I've waited many years for this post, two to be exact, and I've hesitated for two or three days thinking about what else to say about 6th grade and the fall of 1963 but really this is the thing that matters most. It's some time around the middle of the afternoon on a lovely late fall afternoon. It was warm. I remember that. We were in Mrs. Fuller's math class. God knows what we were learning. Some dim precursor to Algebra? It couldn't have mattered. Mr. Campbell walked in and pulled Mrs. Fuller out and they talked, like adults do about things that matter to adults, and Mrs. Fuller walked in to tell us the President had been shot. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas in the afternoon of November, 22nd, 1963 and we were shocked. Huh.
That seems stupid saying that but we were. Shocked. Stunned. Only one other event in my life made me feel like this and that was in September of 2001 when I watched two airplanes hit the World Trade Center. But back then this was something you didn't even know how to acknowledge. What did it mean? Why was he shot? I mean, really? Why would anyone shoot the President of the United States. It wasn't a Russian. It wasn't like we had just ended a great Civil War. So we all sat in class like little fools and looked at each other and then we were sent home. After an hour or so our teachers sent us home. To be with our parents.
They were no better than us. Ed Campbell who had witnessed the slaughter of Korea and who rushed out like a hero to put out fires, Mrs. Myers who seemed stalwart and brave and strong, Mrs. Ferrera who laughed with us and told ribald jokes, they all looked like little puppets who had had their strings cut and they said things and did things but they didn't know why or what they were saying and we walked home.
When I got home my mother was sobbing.
When I got home my mother was sobbing.
Her ironing board was in the living room and she was in the first living room and she was crying. I don't believe I am making this up. This is what I remember. It was embarrassing but she was in tears. The tv was on and there were people talking about the President and by now it was clear he was dead. He'd been shot in Texas by a man and he was dead.
It seems so stupid from this great remove to say we loved this man. We did. He was a joy. He and his family were funny and real and just like our own even if later we were to find out this was all a fiction. He was like my father. He played touch football. My father did. He had back problems. My father did. His wife was beautiful. She looked like my mother and my aunts and my beloved Irish cousins. Jesus.
My mother had been watching a soap opera. She never watched another to the end of her life.
The facts played out on television like nothing we had ever seen; though they would play out that way again and again over the next several years. We were exiled to play but everytime we ducked into the house the President was dead.
You could make up lots of dumb shit about this. We were, after all, only sixth graders. We knew absolutely nothing about politics. To us he was like God. We admired and loved him and his family. We had not had the tragedy of WWII or WWI or the Civil War or any other horror brush up against our stupid little lives. This was like getting smacked really hard with the hand of reality and no one tells you it is reality.
I would imagine there are worse things than public tragedy. I know my mother's death affected me more than the death of the young man who was President. But I know that this event marked my childhood just as clearly as the two towers falling marked my adulthood. That's an odd thing. How public events become private events. How you can remember every smell and hesitation. The ironing board. The quiet streets. The shocked looks of adults. The newsreels, the tv news, the man with a gun the twisted body of Lee Harvey Oswald, the smoke drifting across Brooklyn, the candles burning in doorways all over Jersey City, the ironing board, the gun, the smoke.

Newspaper Routes

2008-04-22T20:06:00.002-04:00

It was in the fall of 1963 that I began my first real job. Up until then I'd mown some lawns, raked a few, and shoveled sidewalks when it snowed but basically had no real daily responsibilities. Then my friend Chris DeHart offered me his Woodbury Times newspaper route. On the surface it sounded like a good deal. You delivered the papers daily, collected the weekly subscription fee on Friday or Saturday, had Sunday off and lived like a prince. It turns out there were some minor problems with the economic model.
I believe at the time the Woodbury Times, now the Gloucester County Times, cost five cents an issue. Five cents! I would deliver them to people and my cost would be three cents. Thus netting me a profit of two cents for each paper delivered. Each customer would receive six newspapers a week, so my weekly profit, per customer, would be twelve cents. I had twenty five customers. That meant I stood to make the princely sum of three dollars per week. For this three dollars I would drive my bicycle around my neighborhood for perhaps forty five minutes a day, tossing newspapers onto porches or sliding them through mail slots or whatever particular quirk a customer might have for accepting the paper. This meant I was working...around four and half hours a week to make three dollars. This puts my hourly rate at about $.60 cents per hour. This was a lot of dough. I think. I mean my allowance was twenty five cents for Christ's sake! But it turns out there were some negatives.
Number one was people didn't pay you. I'm talking grown up, mature men and women stiffing some little twelve year old kid for the vast sum of thirty cents. But you still had to pay the man. That's what the guy from the newspaper was called. The man. He would come by every Saturday and collect your three cents per paper. You had to have that money no matter what. This created numerous problems. Like, number one, what do you do if significant numbers of people don't pay? Or what happens if you're a lazy nincompoop who doesn't really make a sincere effort to collect the money because you're scared to ask grown ups for money? Or, just for the sake of argument, suppose you don't exactly deliver the papers in the orderly, on time fashion your customers expect? And then they say, "I'm not paying for that paper, I never got it!". This could lead to serious cash flow issues. Your vast three dollar profit could end being at most seventy five cents or less. And this for hours of hard works! Or, to be honest, less than committed, hard work. Actually, kind of lazy half hearted rolling around the neighborhood on your bicycle daydreaming and not doing a very good job kind of work. That would probably accurately characterize my work ethic at twelve. Non-existent. To be very honest I'd fire my ass if I worked for me now. i sucked. I was unmotivated, lazy, bored, and lost in a world of fantasy. Delivering the news of the day in a timely fashion was the very last thing on my mind. Collecting funds from surly, angry old people was definitely not something I wanted to do.
I lasted three months or so. I was an abject failure and happy to turn in my bag and go back to playing football and running in the woods. I would try this money making approach again, more on that in the years to come, but I should have looked closer at the business model, the employee profile, etc. I was doomed from the start.
Some boys are born newspaper delivery boys. Others were made to daydream about repelling Russian hordes. I think I fit in the latter category.

Poetry Derived from Play

2008-04-21T02:26:00.001-04:00

Oh, by the way, here's a poem that came out of the work I did for the play. Enjoy.
Dreaming of Imps

Last night there was an imp in my bed.
Well, not really an imp;
a small demon, I guess.
I woke up and must have frightened it
because it scurried off to hide in the shadows.
But I saw it.
The color of a young roach.
Twisted.
Mean.
Then it was gone.

There was a time such things were with me daily.
Demons and imps and shrouded ghouls.
Lingering by my bedside as I lay sleeping,
dreaming horrible dreams of a good life.
A life where I had a job and friends and ate food
in restaurants.
A life filled with nice clothing and cars.
People who laughed at my jokes and forgave my foibles.
The demons watched me twitch in sleep and giggled
at my travails.

I was very sick for a time.
I came so close to death it seemed almost like I was dead.
I spent much too much time with demons and angels.
I ate too little and slept too little and sweated through the night.
I woke each morning drenched from my dreams.

I haven’t been sick for years.
Not like that anyway.
Oh, a flu now and then, or a sore throat,
but that’s been it.
Till that imp leaped up and licked my face.

Perhaps they never left.
Perhaps I’m still desperately ill.
This is the dream I dream.
My car, my dogs, my new suits, my beloved.
All just fodder for their little jokes.
There should be an insecticide for demons and imps.
There should be some poison I could set out
for them to find and eat.
It might be unpleasant to find their swollen little bodies but
except for a day or two of stink it would be better to have them gone.

But it seems to me that there is no poison they wouldn’t love.
No death they couldn’t cherish.
No desire or whim that wouldn’t amuse them.
Dreams and imps.
Poisons and wishes.
All things to think about as we kneel at the foot of the bed
to say our little prayers.

The Play in Various Forms and Permutations

2008-04-21T02:04:00.002-04:00

Well, over the past several days two interesting things occurred. First, Bob Thomas thoughtfully recorded the first night's performance. If you'd care to listen to me on opening night here then is the performance, warts and all. Just follow the link: http://pumphousegardens.com/JackWiler/FunBeingMe.html
Let me know what you think.
That night there was a talk back following the performance. You can catch the recording of that event, again, courtesy of Bob, on You Tube. Here's that link: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=CelGffkfQ0U.
Finally, during that talk back there was discussion about others doing the performance. I had sent the script to my friend Jim Maddox who recorded it in his voice. I'm still too stupid to figure out how to upload the mp3 so for the time being, if you'd like to hear Jim's take on me in NYC please send me an email and I'll send it along.
To all of you who came, many thanks...to those who couldn't here is a meager substitute. Of course you don't get to see my acting talents in all their glory but what the hey.

Sixth Grade September 1963

2008-04-19T18:47:00.002-04:00

It was always nice to go to school in Wenonah. The first days were warm with that beautiful September warmth and you had the idea that you'd do great this year, really great. Sixth grade marked a change for us. In order to get us used to moving around like robots in our new high school we would move around in Wenonah school. From teacher to teacher, subject to subject, classroom to classroom. In theory this would have us up and running on day one at the new HS. In fact it was sort of stupid. We knew everybody. We'd had all these teachers. My math teacher was Mrs. Fuller from last year for God's sake! I think we had Ed Campbell for History but jeez louise this was no stretch for any of us. I mean, what, walk upstairs to a classroom or down the hall twenty feet to another and all with the exact same people? We would not, repeat not, be ready for Seventh Grade.
But we felt all cool and shit and that meant a lot. For the first time in our little lives we felt like we were in control. It was a lie but it felt like it. After school we'd ride our bikes to my house and sit on the curb and talk about the Beatles. There was some weird rule that you had to pick your favorite Beatle. As if I gave a fuck. So I picked George who really didn't do anything. One thing about the Beatles, and the Beach Boys, and some other bands was they had long hair. Okay, not really long, but long enough.
This got me thinking about growing my hair and wearing cooler clothes. Bad thoughts all. My hair was a disaster. Three cowlicks, no hope. Cool clothes? We shopped at JC Penney's for Christ's sake. I couldn't even get Converse sneaks...I had to get the cheap Penney's knock offs. We did go to a mens wear store in Pitman though to pick out our fall clothes. I actually had some vague say in what I wore. I have no idea what I picked only that in all my pictures I still look like a geek.
And our new classes? We were learning about New Jersey history. Apparently over the summer the state decided we should know something about this pisshole so they taught us about the Lenni Lenape and Governor Morris and we had to know all the counties and stuff. As if in Gloucester County we had the vaguest conception of Jersey City or Hoboken or Newark. There were only two negroes in our school!!!
But we were cool, we were cool. We passed through the hall like little gods, lording it over the 5th and 4th graders. When we got home we'd make fun of Chuckie Holstein and his little friends. We'd break their club house and laugh and laugh. We ruled.

The Play and the World

2008-04-18T20:37:00.004-04:00

Okay, I've done my stint on the boards. Perhaps there is more to come but thats for another day and another post. For now just let me say thank you to Steven McCasland, my director, my collaborator, my friend and to Teresa Carson for her help, and to Johanna for her patience. I had a chance to see how another world of art works. I'm not clear where I stand within that world but it might be we can expand on that. I think I should tell you that it was scary as shit to act. And scarier more to go back to the time when I was sick. I haven't been there in a long while and each time we rehearsed and each time I practiced and memorized I went back. Not good. Not good.
The night after our first performance I dreamed about illness. People filled with cancers and pus and their heads splitting open and then when I awoke I saw a little demon scurry off the bed.
Like they were waiting for me still. Like they wanted me still. No normal person wants them to come back and I'm not that abnormal. On the other hand the work seems to resonate in ways I hadn't expected and perhaps we can put it out into the world and make it a positive thing in ways poetry isn't. We shall see. We shall see.
Today I got to see a production of Steven's of Medea. It was rich and strong and clear. The man has a talent and a vision and he will be a great director and producer. His actors were powerful and passionate and you could hear their pain and anguish. Not too shabby.
So, for now my theatrical ambitions are tabled but they will rise again. Tomorrow we return to 1963, Sixth Grade, Dear Mrs Myers, Kathy Collinge, Sex, the Beatles, oh, the horror, oh, the horror. Ha ha. Back to Fun.
God bless Steven and his vision and God take pity on me.

Day One Redux

2008-04-13T08:58:00.002-04:00

Well, I did it. Or really, we did it, Steven and I. Or more appropriately Steven, Kerrie, Teresa, Johanna, and I. Because each of them had a hand in this thing. Johanna for giving me the space to rehearse and memorize and for living with me while I was basically insane. Kerrie for helping Steven with the sound and set and actually making believe it was a good play so I'd calm down. Teresa for introducing me to Steven, helping to shape the play, and sitting in on our rehearsal. And of course Steven, the shaper of my words and the man who taught me how to act.
I think we did good. I think we'll do better tonight so I hope that those of you who couldn't come last night will be there this evening. It was fun. So...I'll see some of you tonight!
Meantime, thanks to some marvelous suggestions, especially you Jules, we're already working on ideas for how to expand this for a wider audience. Look for more Fun and less Me. Until I return to normal on the morrow, I remain, your thespian correspondent.

Fun Being Me...THE PLAY!

2008-04-09T21:33:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, I'm psyched for Saturday and Sunday and hope to see some of you. If you're planning on coming and haven't rsvp'd please do so toot sweet as there are security concerns. An email to my director, Steven, will do the trick. The appropriate email is grouptherapyproductions@gmail.com.
I hope to see you all as I blow my lines, vomit on stage, and crawl, weeping from the stage. Or not. This is theater, who knows whats in store. No dull poetry here. Come one, come all, all for a measly five bucks!

Play Flyer

2008-04-02T09:32:00.003-04:00

Bob Thomas was kind enough to do the conversion of the pdf to a jpg so here's the flyer! I do hope some of you will be able to attend! Please, if you are coming, remember to rsvp to grouptherapyproductions@gmail.com by Tuesday of next week. I need all the moral support I can get!

Names in the Photo

2008-03-27T20:16:00.002-04:00

Hi all, I know I promised I wouldn't be posting but this was relatively simple and required no thought:) Thanks to Barb Conway for id'ing Nancy Garrison and "Linda" Smith, not Susan Smith who was equally hot but much younger. A few other comments on the photo. First, check out my cowlick. Jesus I look like Alfalfa. Second, go back over the past years and look at Terry's expression in every photo. He always has the same odd look. Is it the holly poking him in the back? Who knows?
Barb reminded me as has Bob that one of the cool things about being in Ed Campbell's class was that he would leave to go to fires and come back smelling of smoke. That's devotion.

Sixth Grade 1963-1964

2008-03-26T11:04:00.006-04:00

Mrs. Myers 6th Grade Class
Front Row from left: Elisa Contarino, Dolores Lorenz, Irene Thomas, Susan Parker,Nancy Garrison, Dottie Chattin, Caroline Stens, Margie Loving, Michelle Smith, Susan Abbott
Second Row from left: John Hindman, Ken Fell, Steve Smith, Tim Sellen, Bunny Allen, Sharon Hoffman, Kathy Collinge, Bonnie Mecholsky, Linda Smith, Don Davis, Me, Bob Stokes, Tom Jenkins
Back Row from left: Terry Fleming, Dave Earnhart, Ralph Leeds, Dave Moffit, Mario Contarino

Lull in the Action; Fun Being Me

2008-03-18T19:49:00.003-04:00

Hi everyone! I'm afraid I have to take a three or four week break from the blog and dear Wenonah in order to focus on a project of mine. A very talented young man named Steven McCasland has adapted my two books into a one man play called, oddly, "Fun Being Me". It has its premier on April 12th and 13th at Pace University in downtown Manhattan at 8pm. I'm excited and scared and overjoyed. Steven has done a fine job of locating the points where the books intersect and has woven them into a moving theater piece. Sadly he hired me as the actor. Oh well, you get what you pay for and he's not paying me.
If you'd like to attend you need to RSVP to Steven at this address: GroupTherapyProductions@gmail.com. There is a suggested donation of $5 that goes to the charity of my choice...in this case the GMHC of New York. What a shock, a guy with AIDS picks one of the finest organizations in NYC to donate money to. I'd love to see you there and talk with you after. Here's what Steven said in his email publicizing the piece:
Hello, friends--

I am proud to be a participant in the world premiere of poet Jack Wiler's beautiful one-man play, FUN BEING ME. Jack speaks candidly life with AIDS, living the life of a poet but working as an exterminator to pay the bills, and the difference between life and death. I was given the opportunity to adapt his poetry into a play and direct him in it and I'm proud to say that the work he is doing is stunning and beautiful. He is a wonderful man and his poetry is absolutely gorgeous.

We're presenting the piece of Saturday April 12th and Sunday April 13th at 8pm in Pace's Multipurpose Room. It is presented by Group Therapy Productions, a student theater group I co-founded with Kerrie Bond, Michael Rehse and Theresa Johnson, and Pace CARES. All of the proceeds raised will benefit Gay Men's Health Crisis.

We ask that you donate $5.00 for admission, though it is not required. The performance should last about 45 minutes, followed by a talk-back with Jack and I. Attached you'll find the ad for the performances.

If you'd like to attend, please e-mail GroupTherapyProductions@gmail.com.

I hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Steven McCasland

Okay, you're saying where's the attached ad? I'd post it but it's a pdf file and blogger doesn't let you upload pdf's. God knows why. Write me and I'll email it to you. To all you sad sack South Jersey knuckleheads, this is your chance to come to the big apple for a bit of culture. To everyone else in the metropolitan area I'd love to have you in attendance to buoy my spirits.

Till April 14th then, Godspeed and Happy Easter!
Jack

6th Grade, September 1963

2008-03-12T19:56:00.002-04:00

We pick up our bikes from the grass of my front lawn, me, Chris, Terry, Gary, Mick, & Ed Mossop, and wheel up to the school. It's the last week in August. On the window of the school are the classroom assignments. Terry and I are set for Mrs. Myers. We've never heard of her. It's her first year teaching at Wenonah. But we're in the same class so that's good. We're excited and happy and ready for a new year. We're almost the oldest kids in school. Chris will be in the last 7th grade class at Wenonah and there's one last 8th grade class but after this the school goes to K-6. Next year we'll be in the new regional high school in Woodbury Heights. Gateway Regional High School. So this is our chance to shine.
This is the year the Beatles break big. This is the year JFK buys it. This is the year of long hair (or what passes for long hair in Wenonah), worrying about girls, and being big kids. Finally. Big kids. We rule. Kind of. Almost. In our heads.
There will be much to talk about over the next few months but this was a momentous year of tremendous success. Meaning we didn't do much of anything and thought we were all that. Tomorrow you can see us in all our pre-teen glory.

Summer 1963

2008-03-07T22:24:00.002-05:00

Oh the vagaries of life! I thought I'd write and write and then work and stuff gets in the way and next thing I know I'm getting yelled at by Carolyn in the office that I haven't written anything.
So.
I've spoken in the past about the 4th of July in Wenonah but I've sort of left off how it was different then from now. The principal difference was the dancing. I know, you say what dancing. Well in 1963 and I would imagine for years before there was a dance band that performed on Mantua Avenue after the traditional Pitman Hobo Band concert in the park. The fire department would hose off the street in late afternoon and all us knuckleheads would go to get knocked down by the spray from the hoses. Then immediately following the concert a smart dance band playing all the hits of the fifties and early sixties would set up and every one in town would dance in the middle of town across from Margie's luncheonette and the park.
The sweet sounds of swing and Sinatra would waft across the night air and grown ups and kids would fill the street. This was both weird and cool. In 1963 I was in love with Diane Evans and wanted to dance with her with all my heart. I got my wish. Like some weird little wind up child I approached her and we danced and that might be the last time I ever spoke with her. The same night something stranger happened.
Young people from out of town tried to join the fun. A fight nearly erupted. An alarm spread through the celebrants. The tiny police department and the firemen and the town elect banded together to expel the intruders.
What the fuck?
We might have been in a tiny village in England in the Middle Ages. We might have been Miller's Men doing our spring dance for the Maidens. We repelled the invasion of alien peoples from our sacred precincts. I don't know if the kids were black or white, tough or stupid but they were sent packing. This was for our town...not for anyone else.
When people talk about racism and shit like that they forget that all of this was based on tiny littI don't know if the kids were black or white, tough or stupid but they were sent packing. This was for our town...not for anyone else.
When people talk about racism and shit like that they forget that all of this was based on tiny little towns scared to death of strangers. Of the other. So when some kids came to our town to dance they were beaten back. Huh?
Meanwhile the strains of Glenn Miller filled the air. It was hot and wet all at once. I was dancing with Diane Evans. Life was as good as it might ever get.
The only other thing I truly remember about this is that I was small. There comes a time in a childs life when he is suddenly as tall as everyone else. This was not one of them. I came up to everyone's waist. That's how I saw the world. Maybe that's still how I see the world. Maybe that's how you see the world.
Next post... Mrs Myers and 6th Grade. Jack has his last shot at cool Stay tuned.

Summer 1963

2008-03-07T22:09:00.002-05:00

Oh the vagaries of life! I thought I'd write and write and then work and stuff gets in the way and next thing I know I'm getting yelled at by Carolyn in the office that I haven't written anything.
So.
I've spoken in the past about the 4th of July in Wenonah but I've sort of left off how it was different then from now. The principal difference was the dancing. I know, you say what dancing. Well in 1963 and I would imagine for years before there was a dance band that performed on Mantua Avenue after the traditional Pitman Hobo Band concert in the park. The fire department would hose off the street in late afternoon and all us knuckleheads would go to get knocked down by the spray from the hoses. Then immediately following the concert a smart dance band playing all the hits of the fifties and early sixties would set up and every one in town would dance in the middle of town across from Margie's luncheonette and the park.
The sweet sounds of swing and Sinatra would waft across the night air and grown ups and kids would fill the street. This was both weird and cool. In 1963 I was in love with Diane Evans and wanted to dance with her with all my heart. I got my wish. Like some weird little wind up child I approached her and we danced and that might be the last time I ever spoke with her. The same night something stranger happened.
Young people from out of town tried to join the fun. A fight nearly erupted. An alarm spread through the celebrants. The tiny police department and the firemen and the town elect banded together to expel the intruders.
What the fuck?
We might have been in a tiny village in England in the Middle Ages. We might have been Miller's Men doing our spring dance for the Maidens. We repelled the invasion of alien peoples from our sacred precincts. I don't know if the kids were black or white, tough or stupid but they were sent packing. This was for our town...not for anyone else.
When people talk about racism and shit like that they forget that all of this was based on tiny little towns scared to death of strangers. Of the other. So when some kids came to our town to dance they were beaten back. Huh?
Meanwhile the strains of Glenn Miller filled the air. It was hot and wet all at once. I was dancing with Diane Evans. Life was as good as it might ever get.
The only other thing I truly remember about this is that I was small. There comes a time in a childs life when he is suddenly as tall as everyone else. This was not one of them. I came up to everyone's waist. That's how I saw the world. Maybe that's still how I see the world. Maybe that's how you see the world.
Next post... Mrs Myers and 6th Grade. Jack has his last shot at cool Stay tuned.

Practice Runs; Summer, 1963

2008-02-22T15:44:00.002-05:00

Well, my year with Mrs Fuller came to a close and another glorious summer began. I seem to recall this summer being the summer my father and mother felt it would be good to teach us something and show us America. “See the USA in Your Chevrolet” was the operating phrase here. We didn’t venture too far afield but after a week in Ocean City we took to the road in a series of trips designed to stimulate our young minds and get us out of Wenonah.
We visited Gettyburg, PA, and on the same trip, Strasbourg, PA and the railroad museum, Pennsylvania Dutch country and many other cheesy tourist sites en route. This particular trip was a big favorite for all us boys as it involved Civil War battlefields. Mick and I were mad Civil War fans with Mick even more rabid than me. We had our Civil War hats and our muskets and flags and our Civil War soldiers and games and books and so the chance to see where some Civil War battles actually happened was a rare treat. Or so we thought.
We arrived in Gettysburg after a trip of several hours and headed straight to the Diorama. This was a major tourist attraction and consisted of a huge miniature layout of the battlefield. Lights flashed, music played, and smoke billowed. Still and all it was just little men on paper mache but we loved it. We bought a few souvenirs with money we’d earned from shoveling snow and then it was off to the battlefield proper.
This proved to be a modest disappointment. No, a major bummer. It was just fields. Well mowed fields! No dead guys! No bones! It might as well have had corn growing in it and in fact did in some places. We were not real clear on the fact that dead guys were probably right under our feet and that this was essentially a vast military cemetery and memorial built after a terrible battle. Screw that! We wanted gore and guns and what we got was birds chirping.
Oh, there were some pictures of dead guys. Enlargements of Matthew Brady photos were placed at strategic intervals to illustrate the carnage and that was cool and all. I mean back then you didn’t usually see actual pictures of dead people on the news or in print so seeing the dead rebel sniper by the big rock was cool. Beyond that though we were probably happier swimming in the motel pool.
On our way back we visited the stupid railroad. We went to Strasburg cuz Ted was a railroad lunatic. Ted was an odd little child. He didn’t grow hair till he was like five and he took enormous interest in arcane pursuits and subjects. Railroads were on of them. Old railroads in particular. To give you a real sense of how weird Ted was one year his birthday gift was a push lawnmower from Sears. He loved that mower! Mowed grass for hours when he got it.
Anyway, then we saw the Pennsylvania Dutch people who it turned out weren’t Dutch but German and really not much to look at cuz they were working on their farms most of the time. They’re called Amish apparently and our parents didn’t bother to mention or didn’t know that they were a weird religious sect from Germany that came here to escape persecution. What they got was people following their carts in station wagons taking pictures and buying sho fly pie from them or pretzels. Pretty sad and not way up on the must see list for 11 year olds.
Our next big adventure was a drive down the Skyline Drive in Virginia. I’m fairly certain this was my mothers pick because she was real impressed with the scenery. We could give a fuck about that and mostly moaned about being hungry or tried weird southern food like hominy grits. It was mostly a long, long drive with three yelping boys and two hot adults (no ac in the car) through tourist trap after tourist trap and then back to Wenonah. If I recall correctly Mary Louise was parked with Nonny and Aunt Gersh for this one.
All these trips were, I think, test runs for the mother of all trips. The next summer we were going to drive across country to visit my Aunt Gert in Ventura, CA. You’ll get more of the lurid details on that one in a few months.
The rest of the summer was spent in blissful play. Well, swimming in the pool, running in the woods, and then getting bored. Really, really, really bored because after two months there was nothing to do. What fools we were. Had we known then what we know now I’m certain we would have felt otherwise. Instead we hunkered down on the front porch for marathon games of Monopoly and Risk for the last two weeks of summer and cried like girls because we were bored. My parents must have thought we were insane. I certainly think we were.

Wenonah Wolf Pack

2008-02-20T14:50:00.006-05:00

My fellow cub scouts left to right (thanks to Bob Thomas)
Top Row: Unknown,Robbie Cook, Jackie Russell, Me, Unknown
Bottom Row: Don Eberly,Chris Anderson, Rickie Alexander, Don Fisk.
My brother Mick was thoughtful enough to tell me I'm an idiot and that it wasn't Bobby Holt but Donny Fisk. Ooops! I need the names of those two twins. Help!!!!

Gateway Regional Class of 1970 Reunion

2008-02-19T20:17:00.003-05:00

Oh! By the way, I've thrown up a site for our wacky reunion! You can go and log on and make yourself feel part of another group that never really accepted you! Here's the link: www.GatewayClassof1970.classquest.com.
Please if you read this, visit the site, set up a profile and invite all our other loser, geek, jock, motorhead, prom queen, cheerleader, egghead, friends to visit and join us in July. There's room for everyone under the tent. Plus alcohol. Plus cheesy sixties music which I'm certain will feature line dancing. Plus hot chicks and fat guys! Or bald guys! Or skinny old guys! Or fat guys that are now fat girls! Should be a gas!
I'm going to be there with bells on! Pass it on my brothers and sisters! We have a need for the geator with the heater, the Bristol Stomp, and slow dancing! See you all in July!

Boys in Groups

2008-02-19T19:47:00.002-05:00

Most boys in the 60's were shunted to some kind of youth group or another. Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Explorers, Indian Guides, Summer Camp, Bible studies, whatever. I was no different. Being at the total direction of peer and societal pressure as well as parental orders what would be would be.
My own first brush with organized groups of young boys was in Woodbury, NJ when I was in Kindergarten. This was my fathers weird attempt to bond with me and other boys and young fathers. God knows what popped into his brain to hatch this scheme. My father may be the least outdoorsy type on the planet. While he is athletic and loves sports he has no clue what to do in the wild. Camping is not something he would do unless all the houses and motels in the world burned down. But being a dutiful 50's father he dragged me to one or two groups of kids and dads where he participated in some oddball Indian like rituals and made crafty things. Then, much like his association with Catholicism, he stopped at the first chance he got.
Which brings me to Wenonah in 4th and 5th and 6th grades. I was a Cub Scout. Wolf Pack. God knows what group of Cub Scouts, it was a long time ago but I had a little blue and yellow uniform and a whittling knife and I went once a week with several other assorted losers to meet and whittle and learn woodcraft and dream of being Boy Scouts and living life in the woods. Cub Scouts is kind of strange because you don't ever camp out or cook over a fire or any of that shit. Instead you make stuff out of wood and leather and recite oaths and generally act like probably the biggest geeks on the face of the earth. I'll throw up a picture of me and my Pack for your perusal. You'll see what I mean.
The biggest nightmare for me in Cub Scouts was the Soap Box Derby. For this little exercise in humiliation you were given a balsa wood body of a racing car, two spindly metal axles, four tires and a couple decals and told to craft a racing car that would carry you and your Pack to glory in the Soap Box Derby. Let me be clear. This involved several skills at which I did not excel. Whittling or rather slicing off your fingers, painting (refer to the post on models), and design. I'm an artist not an engineer. This meant that even in the world of geeks I was a bigger geek.
My mis-applied decals, smeared paint job, hacked up hunk of wood would invariable finish last. Thank God. Till next year. The only time Cub Scouts got interesting was in Webelos. Webelos. What kind of nincompoop name is that for an organization? Fake Indian, like Wenonah, but rich in recently manufactured tradition. But at least in Webelos we learned actual shit you could do. Like tie knots or make a fire or cook food.
All of this would prepare me for the humiliation of Boy Scouting. Did I mention I wet the bed? Oops! Big problem on camping trips. After years of preparation, purchase of a nice green uniform, and cool induction into the local Boy Scout Troop, Troop 50 it would all go to shit because of one minor problem. That's right, I washed out on my first overnighter to Elk's Neck Campground in Maryland. Pissed my sleeping bag and out of humiliation, quit. I re-upped when I was 16 but that's for later on.
In the meantime there were of course many other boys organizations you could join that didn't require adult consent. "The He Man Woman Haters Club" for instance. Terry, Chris, and Gary started this one up. The high point of the club, after the scary oath was melting wax on your skin.
Years later in New Brunswick I had a roommate who did this for sexual pleasure. We did it because you could drip fire on your arm and it didn't set you on fire. It was just a little warm. So you looked brave but with little or no actual danger. Aside from setting the house on fire because in general we held our ceremonies in crawl spaces with poor ventilation and old dry wood just ripe for burning.
The nicest thing about all these groups was no matter who you were you always felt like you didn't belong. Cool. None of us felt like we belonged. I was wetting the bed and wheezing, Mick was struggling in school, Sam Stewart was fat, Tommy Wood was everything wrong. We were all broken and all trying to get in some group that would accept us. And they all did! Problem was we all still felt like geeks and losers. Thank God we've grown up. That's sarcasm. Or irony. I forget which.

Athletics in Grade School

2008-02-13T20:06:00.005-05:00

First, as an aside, an update: Johanna is well and doing fine. As am I and our three nincompoop dogs. Thanks to our friends and the doctors and nurses.
Next, on to more important issues. In Wenonah there were three kinds of athletics in elementary school: Organized sports, like Minor League or Pony League or Babe Ruth League baseball. School sports, like softball or touch football or dodge ball. And our own disorganized sports, like our Olympic Games around the block or golf in the back yard, or wiffleball, or street football. Each type had its own odd conventions and values.
Let's start with organized sports. When I was young all there was in Wenonah was hardball. You started in Minor League ball, moved up to Pony League and thence to Babe Ruth League. A few gifted young men went on to play American Legion Ball. This was a kind of semi-pro hardball with actual stakes. Each league consisted of one team from several neighboring towns and games were played twice a week, either home or away. Wenonah's baseball field was wonderful, with actual dugouts. It had once been the field for the Wenonah Military Academy in the twenties and so was pretty much regulation. No fences though. Right field was the railroad tracks and left and half of center were wooded. But it was a good 325 to any boundary so not many people banged one that far.
Back in the day you weren't put on the field to boost your self esteem. You were put in the game based on your abilities. If you sucked you went in in the 9th inning. That was if we were winning. I played a couple games a year and got one or two at bats. No hits. Several missed flies. I was always in right field which was a blessing because nobody could hit there except southpaws and no one was a southpaw till Pony League.
At the end of the season, in the fall, we would have a banquet to honor the Most Valuable Player, the Most Improved Player, etc in all the various leagues. We went with our dads and wore suits or sport coats. At the end of the awards and the dinner there was an inspirational talk by a professional athlete. I remember Tom Brookshire but that's about it. They weren't too inspirational but we had seen them on tv and they autographed our programs. Most of these athletes had regular jobs so this was a quick $200 bucks for one night. A lot of money back then.
School sports were just stupid. Rarely enjoyable and never allowed to be played to their conclusion. The only time it was fun was when we played touch football or soccer in the snow. That was a gas. Otherwise you'd play for a very brief time and then back to numbers and books all hot and sweaty.
Disorganized sports were our metier. We developed 18 hole courses in our backyards. I remember excelling at chip shots over the garage roof in particular. We played hour upon hour of street football. Everyone, everywhere, knows that gig. Ten steps, cut behind the Cadillac and I'll hit you. Chris you go long. All day long.
We played dozens of games. Workies Up, Horse, you name it, we played it. We invented our own version of the Olympics with everything from the 100 yard dash to pole vaulting (a failed experiment involving bamboo poles). High jumping was done over yard fences, etc.
The odd thing was that I learned from all of them. I actually became okay at hardball. I learned fundamentals even though I rarely played. I learned strategy and good sportsmanship and how to razz the opposing pitcher. I learned how to have fun playing our sports. Hell, I even developed a fairly good golf swing. Years later, never having actually ventured on a course, I had to play for business. My first drive on a real golf course went 200 yards, dead straight, off the tee. Not too shabby.
Playing was serious business for us. So serious that we played from sun up to sundown with no let up. So serious that we played with bloody knees and lips and elbows. So serious I would run the 100 yard dash again and again and again till my asthma was so bad I had to take my meds and lay in my bed and cry because I couldn't run again. It was as serious as work. Sometimes it was fun.

Hospitals and Fun

2008-02-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

This post is only a little about Wenonah, although everyone in Wenonah probably has a similar story to tell. I've spent the past two days caring for Johanna. She developed a severe infection from a sinusitis and we had to go to Christ Hospital. The hospital was deluged with flu patients and she was very ill and so for a variety of reasons there was no bed immediately available. I've been at her side most of the past few days along with her dear friends Sandy and Oscar and Douglas and Teresa. Finally after nearly two days she got a bed and was able to rest in comfort.
Maybe you've been ill. Maybe you have a friend who has been ill. You know what I'm talking about. The long hours waiting for doctors to make decisions, the stressed emergency room workers, the poor sick people who fill the ER. It's not a broken system but it's a system that is often ill equipped to deal with actual people. Johanna's nurses and caregivers were kind and thoughtful but we sat in a cold room with little information for hour upon hour upon hour. It's tempting to say it was because she was undocumented or because she was HIV positive or whatever thing you want to put out to make yourself feel angry but the simple fact is that the American system for caring for the ill is totally fucked the fuck up. We make rules to help people and we make rules to protect ourselves against litigation but we don't make latitude for care.
I watched a young latin girl leave the hospital because she didn't get pain killers fast enough. She was angry and in pain. Her sister was filled with rage. They screamed at all the women in the ER that it was their fault. When I arrived this morning Johanna wanted to leave. No rest. No solace. No calm. No beds.
When I was ill it was the same. When you go into a hospital you are a patient. And sadly that's what you must become. Patient. Patient while you are in agony. Patient while you are afraid. Patient while you are at the mercy of people who have dozens of other people in the same straits.
You could say fuck this shit. Maybe we should. Maybe litigation and money have changed the landscape of healthcare so that it makes no sense. But all I could think about while we were sitting there was men in Civil War hospitals and the men and women who cared for them. For them there was no medicine for the most part to save anyone. There was only solace and kindness and concern.
I think we should go back and look at what the fuck we're doing in healthcare and identify the core of healthcare. Care. Solace. Understanding. For patients. For caregivers. For the men and women who wipe shit off our backsides and listen to us scream in agony.
It's not money that we need to focus on. It's how to deliver care without regard for procedure, regulations, or money. We don't need as many machines. We need more nurses. We need more doctors. We need to stop separating people by their race and disease and personality.
It's very sad when the most wonderful moment in the day is that you get a hospital bed. The most wonderful moment in the day should be when you feel well. When someone claps you on the back and says thank you for saving my mother's life. When a doctor can say I've done my best and I've been successful. I guess I don't believe there are really that many sick people that we couldn't really find a way to address this. Many people here were there only because they had the flu. What the fuck is that. You have to go to the hospital because you have the flu?
We're voting over the next year or so for someone to change this shit. Fuck Iraq. Fuck Afghanistan. Fuck Al Queda. The worst thing we can do is ignore our humanity. I'm on the side of Walt Whitman who tended the dead and dying. All he had to give was kindness. No penicillin. No morphine. No beds. Only care. If we go back to care maybe we can sort this shit out.
I am the lucky beneficiary of healthcare. I would have been dead 20 years ago. I'm not. Nor is Johanna. But no one should be treated like a piece of meat in a hallway by rules and regulations.
People should be able to see their doctor for the flu. Not a hospital. People all people should be able to ask for help. Documented, undocumented, uninsured, insured. Who really cares. I know this is idealistic and stupid and naive. But maybe we need to go back to that.
There was a young man in the hospital named Eric. He greeted patients by name and engaged them in a real way. He made them feel like he could help. He helped cut through red tape and talked to doctors and nurses to make things move along. How sad it was only one man and not an entire hospital.
God Bless men like Eric and God Bless the women who cared for Johanna and gave her solace and goddamn the stupid rules and regulations and bullshit that stand in the way. If you vote over the next months vote for people that care. Vote for a country that cares for all it's citizens, not just the well to do or the privileged. We are a rich nation built on hope. Vote for hope.

Spring et al in Wenonah

2008-02-05T17:40:00.000-05:00

Wenonah in Spring is always beautiful. When I was in 5th grade my father and mother would give my brothers and sister Easter gifts. Just one and a piece of clothing along with our coconut egg and jelly beans. In 5th grade I got a Sears fishing rod and reel. I'd used fishing tackle as a boy down the shore but this was different. It was a spinning reel. In this case, closed face. I also got line and some hooks and a bobber and a lure or two.
My father knew pretty much nothing about fishing. That meant that my brothers and I took to reading the instruction book and practicing in the back yard with the rod and reel. I mustered a few casts and then it was off to Davis Lake to catch some carp. In Wenonah there were about two fish you could catch. Carp and small mouth bass. None of us caught small mouth bass. That's probably because we just put balls of wadded up bread on a hook and tossed it into the lake. Oh, sometimes you'd get an eel or a minnow but mostly you caught carp. Carp are basically giant goldfish that grow in little lakes. They eat vegetation and that's about it. They are not, repeat, not, sport fish.
They do struggle a bit when you hook them but pretty much any idiot with a hook can catch one. What you do with them after you catch them is somehow unhook them and throw them back in, only to catch them again. For all I know there is only one carp in all of Davis Lake and I caught him dozens of times along with my friends.
Under a certain age you don't need a license to fish so we were able to stand there like idiots for free and catch carp. Once in a while we'd go to Sutton's Lake or down to the Mantua Creek. The creek actually had fish in it you might eat. There were catfish in the creek and they were catchable and if you were ballsy enough you could skin them and cook them and eat them. I never got past the trying to skin them phase. Catfish for those of you who didn't grow up in a rural or semi-rural environment are some weird prehistoric fish like sharks without scales. You have to peel their skin off them. This is neither easy nor pleasant and they are not happy about it. They're ugly, nasty, and don't like dying. Pretty much like every creature on the face of the earth.
So there we were in the middle of the woods, lines in the stupid little lake, waiting for carp. All around us the dogwoods and peach were erupting in bloom. The scent of blossoms, lilacs and hyacinths and a thousand other flowers filled the air. We didn't notice. We were looking at a muddy little pond stocked with ornamental junkfish and trying to be like the men we read about in Boys Life.
There is a horrible lesson to be learned here. I do remember at times forgetting I was fishing. Just lying back in the new grass on the shore of the creek and breathing in the air in the warm spring breeze. That might have lasted for twelve minutes. It should have been savored. Perhaps it still is.

GIANTS!!!

2008-02-04T06:51:00.000-05:00

One word: Giants! Two words Gi Ants! Three words: New York Giants! The best superbowl ever! Yes! Never bring your super model girlfriend to the game.

The Lives of Others

2008-01-29T16:48:00.000-05:00

When I put up the last post I was disheartened. I realized as I wrote it that I knew nothing about the lives of the men and later women who protected our homes and property. Yes, I rode on the trucks and watched the parade and went home dutifully at 8:00 each evening but what it meant to have your life disrupted by a loud, insistent whistle, what it meant to perhaps see the home of one of your friends in ruin, those were things that meant nothing to me. And why should they. I was a fifth grade boy with a boys concerns. Cub Scouts, grades, book reports, games, baseball, all those things were important. Sure firemen seemed brave but that had been drilled into me constantly as a boy. Why it was a brave thing to be a fireman was not immediately apparent. This may seem dumb but the actual fact that you could die putting out a fire was not something that occurred to me. Burnt beyond recognition was not a phrase that would ring a bell with me. Yet the men who manned the trucks were for the most parts vets of the Korean Conflict and World War II. Many, if not all of them, had seen men "burnt beyond recognition" and far, far worse. Still when the whistle blew they pulled back the covers and rushed into danger.
But this rumination is not just about their bravery it is mostly about my ignorance. And the ignorance of most fifth grade boys and girls in South Jersey in 1963 in the second year of the Kennedy administration. Yes, we saw war on TV and read books about it but it was all a movie or a cartoon. After all, the Coyote always came back alive. And beyond our ignorance of real things like death and sorrow and ugliness there was our ignorance of the lives of adults. We knew precious little about what it meant to be a man or a woman. That was not on TV for the most part. I learned the facts of life in fifth grade from Chris DeHart on his porch. It seemed absurd. You stuck your wee wee in a girls wee wee and some milk came out and then she had a baby. You might as well believe the moon was made of green cheese. We were just a few years away from sexual maturity but centuries away from wisdom.
When our parents had parties we sat upstairs and listened to the Mills Brothers and Frank Sinatra and the loud, sudden laugh of a woman in her thirties. Raucous, rough sounds that were the sounds of a world so far from our own they might as well have been coming from India. Work was just a few chores. Raking leaves or pulling weeds or putting our clothes away. Our fathers left each morning and returned each night but what they did while they were gone bore no relation to anything we could imagine. Death? Oh, maybe your great grandmother might pass away or the grandmother of a friend but no one I knew had lost a brother or a sister or a father or a mother. But wait, I'm lying there. My mother and Aunt's distant relative (sort of a cousin), Madelaine, had lost her brother in a "tragic accident. They said he had hung from a rope on his bunk bed. Suicide? Accident? Who knew, because it was not talked about. It was mentioned among adults and then never spoken of again. That was how death moved in and out of our childhood. We romped through the quick mud in the swamp and rode our bikes no handed down Cherry Street and threw ourselves and our sleds down Cemetery Hill with no thoughts of death or injury or the future. There was only a huge and nearly perfect NOW and that was where we lived.
So, my apologies to all the firemen and women of Wenonah for not taking the time to really envision your lives. I am writing this primarily from my perspective as a child and so that leaves out pieces. Some of them we pick up along the way. Like sex or injury, but many of them won't happen to me until this part of the blog has faded into dust.

One request, if anyone reading this has a photo of the old Wenonah firehouse or Police Station please send it my way. I tried to find one on the net but apparently none exist. Thanks my faithful readers:)

Volunteer Firemen

2008-01-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

Bob Thomas suggested I write a bit about the Wenonah Volunteer Fire Dept. since I had just covered the Police Dept. When I was in fifth grade the firehouse was a two story building on South West Ave. It was a white building and the one fire truck was kept on the first floor with the second floor functioning as a social hall for the volunteer firemen and other community functions. On Election Day the first floor was where the voting took place. On top of the firehouse was a loud whistle which was sounded to summon the volunteers should there be a fire. You could hear it everywhere in town. The number of whistles indicated (at least this is what us chowderheaded kids thought) the severity of the fire. It also was sounded at 8:00pm each evening to tell all the children to go home. It was called the Eight O'Clock Whistle. On the 4th of July it was sounded to let everyone know the parade was about to begin. It was also supposed to be sounded as an air raid siren. There would be tests of the air raid function when we were young and if we were in school we either a) got under our desks and put our hands over our heads or b) went into the hall to do "duck and cover". I guess this made people feel safe. I know that in fifth grade we were fairly certain that if there were a real nuclear war we would be toast by the time the dopey whistle went off. We lived about ten or so miles from Philadelphia and the US Navy Yard as well as some of the largest oil refineries and chemical plants on the east coast. There was a Nike missile base in Pitman and it seemed like the Russians would probably know to hit Philly. We read John Hersey's "Hiroshima" and that was just a little bomb. An H Bomb would cook us all. But still we did as we were told.
I wasn't the child of a volunteer fireman so my experiences with the fire department were limited to rides on the truck on the 4th and watching the volunteers speeding to the firehouse when there was a siren. My brother Ted joined the department as a young man and it was then that I found out that one big feature of being a volunteer fireman was that you hung around and drank beer. That probably explains much of the appeal in a town like Wenonah, with no bars and lots of young married men with children. Plus every once in awhile you got to put out a brush fire or a fire in a kitchen. Bob reminds me that Ed Campbell would leave school for fires and return covered in soot and smelling of smoke.
I don't recall anyone ever dying in a fire in Wenonah. I actually don't recall any really big fires. But still there were fires and danger and men willing to help for no pay at all. They still do. In a bigger firehouse with two trucks (at least) and serious training and probably the same amount of beer.
I go to the firehouse each 4th of July to drink beer and meet old friends and remember the good old days. We watch the parade and try to egg the firemen into pulling their sirens. They're not supposed to but they do anyway.
It's kind of strange that a town as small as Wenonah was divided up in little ways. I don't know much about the holiday displays and the care and work that went into them because my father wasn't in the Lion's Club (until much later) and whatever danger the men who volunteered to fight fires faced is something I know nothing about because my father wasn't a fireman. But divided up or not divided still men got together for business or pleasure or to help their town and did it all for free. For free.

Law Enforcement in Wenonah

2008-01-22T19:02:00.000-05:00

There was a comment a few weeks back from a woman whose father was a former Chief of Police in Wenonah. There haven't been all that many Police Chief's in Wenonah. When I was young the Chief was Chief Haines. He lived in a home across the dirt road from the Wenonah Lake. He was a likeable guy whose primary job, so far as we kids could figure was acting as occasional crossing guard at Mantua Avenue. I'm sure he had other duties but honestly, crime was not a big issue in Wenonah until the late sixties and even then it was kind of tame.
When I got sick and went back to Wenonah they were just finishing the new Municipal building. Previously it was in the Fire House at the rear on the 2nd floor. Before that the Police Department was a two room building next to the Farmer's and Mechanic's Bank that eventually became the Village Shoppe. The Village Shoppe was owned by my friend Terry's mom, Mrs. Fleming.
You get the picture. We're talking lazy days with not much to do. Still this is a regular town with regular people which means there was domestic violence, drunk driving, even drug abuse. Every once in awhile a team of burglars would target homes in Wenonah over a two or three week period. Then there were black people and other undesirables walking through town. They'd be subjected to an interrogation to determine their destination and intent and sent on their way.
Any major crimes in Wenonah were for the most part swept under the rug. Which is not to say that there was no punishment only that the punishment might not involve jail time and might mean you got to move your ass out of town.
Still, there was the occasional radar trap on Mantua Avenue, speed limit 25 and built for 50. We'd sit on the bus bench at Lincoln and Mantua Ave and wave to the soon to be ticketed. Just behind them the old man we knew as "Parnelli" would speed through town at a blistering 7 miles an hour. Who's to say committed the greater crime?
Teenagers would occasionally act up and commit acts of vandalism. Eventually there was a Juvenile Board that would assess penalties for the crimes and misdemeanors of the malcontents that crossed it's threshold. Maybe you got caught soaping windows on Mischief Night, or trashed an empty house, or got caught drinking your folks liquor. Chief Haines would drag you in and you and your parents would stand one night in front of a group of people who would decide your fate.
Sometimes I think the worst punishment was that you would have to stay in Wenonah forever. Other times I think it was that you would be banished forever. Either one was a curse.

Getting Sick in 1960

2008-01-14T19:54:00.000-05:00

Since I've been sick maybe this is an opportunity to talk about being sick.
When I was young I was sick often. Mostly asthma. But also all the routine illnesses that were a fact of life in the fifties and sixties: measles, mumps, chicken pox, 24 hour flu, 48 hour flu, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and more. A horrible litany of illness waiting to claim our frail bodies. The sad part was, we couldn't wait to get measles and shit!
You got enormous days out of school, bragging rights for the most dire disease, your parents bought you comics and were nice to you. Hell. getting sick was almost a good thing! So good, in fact, that we soon figured out faking it. And it didn't take a genius to realize a good day for a sore throat was the day you had a math test.
It must have been weird for our parents to wake up one morning and realize we were 45 lb con men.
What a terrible loss for them. Innocent sick infant one day, malingering liar the next. Surely they saw where this all might lead, jail, divorce, disgrace and dishonor.
But for the moment there was only lying in your bed with a Superman or Justice League of America and buttered sugar cinnamon toast and a cup of tea. Bliss. Later, when you were feeling "better" you could go downstairs and watch I Love Lucy reruns or Truth or Consequences or The Price is Right. Then lunch, soup, and back to bed you poor boy.
At dinner you might feel like a criminal or a liar with your brothers staring at you but who cared. The only real down side to being sick in grammar school was going to bed really early.
Unfortunately fake sick days had a bad habit of biting you in the ass. Because you still had to turn in the book report, take the math quiz, write the history essay. In other words you were just deferring your own complete and abject failure to complete what you should have completed.
So, you slogged your way into school and got your crummy grade and then several days later got chastised for your poor study habits and inability to understand the times tables or whatever. But in your heart it was almost worth it. Almost.
And what of real illness? What of true disastrous childhood diseases. Well, like sex and race they were squirreled away in each families private closet. Retarded children, cancer, operations, all of these were known and not known. Talked about and not talked about. Girls went away for three month vacations in their teens. Kids left for awhile and never came back and often their families left as well. A void.
But then there were other real illnesses that were mega real and glorious. Third Grade. Jack. Stomach flu. What would now be called a Novovirus. Then...24 hour stomach flu. But more than that it's me in the sixth row, suddenly nauseous, holding up my hand to go to the bathroom and Mrs Ferrara doesn't see for years, decades. Then she calls on me and I lurch to the fifth row, the fourth, the second, and then it blows. A vast projectile vomit that lives forever in the lives of my classmates. They sent everyone home the class stunk so bad. Poor Nick had to clean up vomit for two rows. Jesus. That was the flu.
So now, when I'm home feeling guilty about being sick and wondering when I can go back to work, I remember fifth grade. I'm coughing, I'm sure my throat is scratchy, I don't feel well at all. My mom asks how I am and I croak back, OK. We'll see in the morning and then I know I'm home free, good to go, sick as a dog, out of school, no class tomorrow, mom loves me, bless us oh lord for these thy gifts.

Back in the world; Sort of

2008-01-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been a few days. I went off the Hep C meds 12/31 but came down with the flu on the 3rd of January. I've been sick as a dog since. On the plus side I feel almost alive now and am already thinking about my next post, my next poem, and my new play. God Bless this world.
Stay tuned cats and kittens we're still in the mix! It's time for cars that turn into boats, JFK and Camelot, more fifth grade and Easter and that's just in the next month. Who knows, I may throw in Negroes, Jews, and Quakers into the pot just to see how it tastes.
Happy New Year! God Bless America! Yay Obama! Hooray for Hillary! Vote for John McCain! A vote for Fred Thompson is a vote for Law and Order!

2008 and on beyond zebra

2008-01-02T19:44:00.000-05:00

You've probably wondered what happened to me and my posts. Well, it wasn't Christmas or New Years...it was Infergen. The meds for the hep c wiped my holiday spirit, energy, appetite, and apparently my platelets yet again. I'm off the meds for a bit while we evaluate what's the what.
In the meantime to anyone who didn't hear from me or Johanna over the holidays please accept our apologies. You are in our hearts.
God Bless You all and Happy, Happy New Year!

The Holiday Display

2007-12-20T20:07:00.000-05:00

The coming Christmas celebration gives me a moment to weigh in on one of the vexing issues of our day. The holiday display. We had one in Wenonah, in the park, on E. Mantua Ave, across from Margies. The Lion's Club erected it shortly after Thanksgiving and the display consisted of a creche (life size figures of Mary, Joseph, the Wisemen, and baby Jesus all 2 dimensional cutouts), several pine trees decorated with lights and carols piped through a sound system. There may have been Santa and some reindeer but I can't remember. I do remember baby Jesus.
It was cheesy and nice. It mostly had a place in our collective little hearts but as a sincere demonstration of the miracle of Christ's birth it might have been lacking. Not that I don't think piped in carols would have made the manger in that long ago Bethlehem a better place but really I would have preferred just reindeers and Santa and we could leave Jesus in church where he seemed to look a lot better.
Last year I visited Suzy Parker's folks in Townsend's Inlet after the 4th of July. Dewey, Suzy's dad, told us about one year, maybe three or four before my 5th grade celebration, when he was in charge of the music for the Lion's Club. He allowed a young woman whom he and his friends found attractive to pick the music for the display. She picked "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree".
Needless to say this did not go over well in little Wenonah. But listening to Dewey tell the story reminded me of how cool it used to be that just a dumb old rock and roll tune could set everybody into high dudgeon. We were blessed with our small town nincompoopery and it's crazy little battles.
I don't know that it matters whether Jesus is in the park on Christmas eve if he's made of colored pressboard. I do think it matters that he's in the hearts of people that profess to believe that's important. I believe that Christmas is a joyous holiday. The Druids, the Christians, the Jews, all of us knuckleheads shaking in the dark, lighting candles and singing songs. God Bless Us Everyone!

Margie's Luncheonette

2007-12-16T09:20:00.000-05:00

Downtown Wenonah didn't have much in the way of shopping. There was a BP gas station on the corner of West & Mantua. Across the street was Bowker's grocery store and in the rear of Bowker's was Tony Sacca's meat market. Next to Bowker's was G. Wayne Post and a woman's hair salon. There was a bank further up North West Ave., the Farmer's and Mechanic's National Bank and next to the bank was a building that was first a police station and then a small store run by Mrs. Fleming and Alice Brangan, the Village Shoppe. Across the street on E. Mantua Ave. was another building that housed various businesses and a second where Margie's Luncheonette was located.
Margie's was the center of Wenonah. It was directly across from the park and almost dead center in town. It had a lunch counter, a magazine rack, several booths, school supplies, and a candy counter. It could be said to be almost heaven. In 5th Grade I was finally allowed to eat lunch at Margie's on rare occasions rather than returning home. This meant a grilled cheese or hamburger and a chocolate shake. It was also mega intimidating since all the "cool" kids ate and hung at Margie's. The counter was generally filled with local businessmen and the booths in the back with teenagers and 6th, 7th, & 8th graders. Most of my time in Margie's was spent not in the booths but at the candy counter or magazine rack. Comics and candy. A dual addiction. There was also a cooler filled with sodas on ice. Cokes and vanilla soda and grape and pineapple. You'd stick your hand deep into the cold water and pull out what you wanted. All for a dime.
Candy was still penny candy, which was good if your allowance was .25 cents. My particular favorites were jawbreakers and a sour english candy whose name escapes me. While staring at the counter and making your selection you would steal glances at the kids in the booths. Girls in cashmere sweaters and guys with leather jackets and pompadours. Cool kids cracking wise and all no doubt laughing at me in my cowlicked glory. The Gernaga brothers, the older DeHarts, the Brangans, Bobby McQuaide, and a dozen other kids all too cool for school were back in the booths blowing straws at each other and sucking down fountain drinks. Hanging out.
I was forbidden to hang out. I'm not exactly sure why but I do know that Earl Rowland was one of the kids in the back and he was a real bad egg. Ralph Parkinson and his crew were there as well. Some girls my age were there, Dolores Lorenz, Sandy Fay, Jane Shiflet. All fast girls. Way too fast for me who know idea what any of this meant.
So I'd get my two comics and five pieces of candy and walk slowly home through the gathering dark. Inventing fantasies where the girls would dig me and I'd save them from evil. Then I'd be the cool cat. Then they'd see. They'd know who I really was inside. The fantasies of young boys are deeply disturbing and I'll leave you now to contemplate my terrible revenge. If Bobby McQuaide and Stewart DeHart could hang me in a closet by a fan belt, well, fine. But soon they'd know who they were messing with. I was smart. I was brave. I weighed 65 pounds soaking wet. My hair stuck up in the back and my shoes were scuffed and worn. My shirts screamed loser. My pants had flannel lining in the winter. Oh they'd soon see who they were messing with, yes, indeed.

Happy Birthdays and Gifts

2007-12-14T19:38:00.000-05:00

So, tonight is my 56th birthday. Johanna is making a sopa de carne for her friends and I've eaten half a pepperoni pizza from Pizzamasters. I'm drinking champagne and reading the New York Times. I'm slightly whacked from the Infergen and a little tipsy.
What I'm not is forgetful. In 2001 I spent my 50th birthday throwing up. Danny and Patty came to visit me. I proceeded to puke vast quantities for most of the day. I weighed under 100 lbs. I was very, very cold all the time. My brother Mick's birthday gift to me was a warm throw blanket. Now my dog Cookie uses it to sleep in the evenings.
I may not feel 100%. But I weigh a lot more than 100lbs and while I get chilly I don't need a throw rug. I'm alive. God has given me a great and wonderful gift and I will fight with all my heart to be true to that gift.
So tonight I'm raising a glass of thanks and joy. Prosit. Cheers. Nostrovya. Salud. Lift one with me please my friends. It's the beginning of winter. If we all drink deep and sing loud the spring will come and then the summer and all this will be but a dream.
God bless everyone who helped me through my first illness. God bless all of you who hold me up now. Life is a rare blessing. Cheers!

Interior Decorating

2007-12-12T06:48:00.000-05:00

It's true that most houses were viewed for just a second from the porch. The exception was the houses of our friends. We spent lots of time in our friends homes and we were being taught lessons, about what rooms were for, about where we could go, and about what we could do.
My own home was decorated in a mix of hand me down furniture and store bought couches. The basic motif was "colonial". At least that's what my mom said it was. Lack of money meant some pieces of furniture were periodically repainted to fit some new color scheme my mom came up with. Some chairs were periodically reupholstered. Once in a while a new couch or chair came to the house from Sears or the furniture store. Once in a while. Not often. It was always a sensible piece. And it was "colonial".
My friend Terry Fleming's house was the exact opposite of ours. One of the few contemporary homes in our neighborhood it boasted fireplaces and a finished basement. The look was "modern". Probably Danish modern but I'm just guessing. There was a kidney shaped table made from weird wood. There were thick odd carpets. There were glasses in the cabinets with racy sayings on them and skimpily clad girls. Downstairs in the basement there was a slot machine that worked.
A slot machine! In Wenonah! You couldn't do anything bad in Wenonah but in the Flemings you could gamble. Sadly you couldn't keep your winnings but then you didn't have to use your own money either.
The basement had wood panelling as did the kitchen and small first living room. Everyone in the Fleming house slept late. Mick and I were up at 6am and banging on Terry's door at 7:30am. Mrs. Fleming would open the screen door and stare at us as though we were martians. Terry was asleep and that's where we should be. Boom. The door would shut and we would meander out to figure out what to do till 10am when Terry woke up.
Mrs Fleming was fascinating to me. The house was filled with the smell of her Toni hair treatments. She was a tall, loud, brassy Irish woman. Big hearted and filled with noise. The exact opposite of my house. Years later I met her sister. She had sung with the Dorsey brothers in the forties and was married to a NY stockbroker. Their son was "damaged" in Nam and spent his days flying a biplane. Their daughter worked at MOMA.
The Flemings went to clubs. The Latin Quarter. Philly. They drank and laughed. They were like grown ups on TV.
Mick and I would go back to our colonial home and bumble around with our soldiers or read some comics then back to Terry's and the slots. It was like going from Christmas in Connecticutt to Viva Las Vegas every day.

5th Grade Report Card

2007-12-07T07:29:00.000-05:00

Well, here's my report card from 5th Grade. As you can see I'm doing quite a bit better than I was with Mr. McIntire. Also you'll note Mrs Fuller has nicer handwriting. After a year of hard, hard work 5th grade was proving to be cake.

Parker's Lake

2007-12-05T19:35:00.000-05:00

The cold weather and light snow, as well as the coming holiday, remind me that in 5th grade I received my first pair of ice skates. As per usual my brother Mick received a pair as well. Mick got a pair of black figure skates and I got a pair of hockey skates. It's my guess that my parents had no idea of the difference between the two and that my father thought hockey skates might be more manly and make me feel more grown up. Or not.
In any case sometime in early Jan of 1963 my Aunt Gert (I believe this was the case though I could be wrong) took Mick and I to Parker's Lake to ice skate. Parker's Lake was the premier ice skating location in Wenonah. It had a dock for changing your shoes to skates and an island with a fire going all day and all night long. You walked the length of S. Clinton Ave and then down a long dirt road till you came to the lake. If it was frozen of course you just walked across to the dock. Above the dock, up a steep hill, was Dewey and Edna Parker's house. It was the childhood home of my friends Suzy, Danny, and Billy. Behind it Dewey ran his West Jersey Biological Supply business (the rat farm). But we could care less. For us all that mattered was the lake.
There were other lake's to skate on in Wenonah. At the end of Jefferson by the Wenonah lake was Davidson's lake, perfect size for ice hockey, and upstream from Parker's Lake was a much larger lake, Langston's. We didn't much go there till we were in our teens.Over in Sinnott Tract there was Sinnott's lake. We'd skate on any one of these lakes but during my youth everyone in town went to Parker's.
It's gone now. A hurricane in the 80's wiped out the dam and NJ DEP restrictions made it too costly to rebuild the dam so no more lake, no more skating.
In any case that cold January day my Aunt Gert dragged me and Mick and our brandy new skates down to the lake. This is probably going to come as a shock but I sucked at ice skating. Over the years I've attained a measure of competency so I don't look like a complete klutz but that afternoon was disaster piled upon disaster. Most of which were caused by the fact that no one with me, including Gert, knew how to skate on hockey skates. Everyone had figure skates. All over the ice people were executing twirls and figure eights, and tearing up clouds of ice with their toes. But hockey skates have no teeth on the tips of the skates. You stop on hockey skates like you do on ski's. Sideways. With edges. But no one knew that, least of all me.
So once again I was hurtling around on a new Christmas gift with no way of stopping. Except to fall face forward. I grew colder and colder. Mick got better and better. The day dragged forever. The young girls in my class skated around me like I was a lump of coal skittering across the ice.
I'd like to give you some epiphany here. Say that I at last mastered skating that day and executed a gorgeous turn and stop. But I didn't. I hurtled into the dock, banged my knees, cursed what little curses I knew and tore the skates from my feet. I'd be back the next day, and the next, and I sucked just as much.
There were some benefits to this little bit of torture but they bore no fruit till I was in my late teens. In the meantime I looked like the rough tough cream puff at a time when I wanted to glide like a god.

The Sears Catalog

2007-12-02T16:33:00.000-05:00

It being the holiday season it seems pertinent to mention the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The catalog came to us on a quarterly basis and in many ways was our primary shopping vehicle. School clothes, spring wardrobes, bathing suits. All from Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck. This is from a time when there were no shopping malls. When people had to go to Philadelphia to Wanamaker's to shop. There was an actual Sears and Roebuck store in beautiful downtown Camden but we rarely went there even though it was 20 minutes away.
But the catalog that mattered most was the Christmas catalog. It came out, as I recall, sometime in mid November and we eagerly grabbed it and began our gift choosing. Army men, Easy Bake Ovens, Chemistry Sets, dolls, football helmets, bikes, everything, everything was in the Sears catalog.
But they weren't just in the catalog. No, things were laid out so you could see just how great they were and how you could use them. These layouts were spectacular. The army men were storming the beaches, the tubes and vials of the chemistry set were bubbling with sinister potions, men and boys were playing energetic games of touch football in authentic NFL jerseys wearing authentic NFL helmets. The bikes had gear aplenty, rear view mirrors, dangly shit that hung off the hand grips, lights and mileage devices. It was mesmerizing. It also was perfect for pointing out exactly what you wanted to your clueless parents. Left to their own devices god knows what they might pick but with the Sears catalog you could clearly circle your first, second, and third choices.
The bulk of the catalog was in black and white but the cover was in glorious Christmas colors. It, more than any religious event, marked the beginning of the holiday season. Fuck Thanksgiving, fuck Advent, this was the real deal. And by arriving well before Thanksgiving it stretched out the gap between whatever day it was and Christmas to near unendurable lengths. Ninety years till Christmas, only sixteen thousand shopping days till Christmas. The gap between getting the catalog and the lighting of the tree on Christmas morning was the size of the Snake River canyon. Unfathomable.
So we'd soldier on, day after day after day, the only thing keeping our hopes alive the catalog. In the last weeks before Christmas we'd begin the hunt for hidden toys. This was hard on everyone. Usually the gifts arrived at the Post Office in town while we were in school so Mom had time to squirrel them away before we got home. Over the years their hiding places became more and more obvious. The problem was that if you found them you didn't really know whose gift anything was. It was as if God had created some cruel laboratory experiment in envy. Part of you would be pleased you found a gift, part would think it was for your brother and your parents hated you, then another part would hate yourself because you begrudged your brother a gift. Cruel cruel fate.
The only way your hopes and dreams would be revealed was on Christmas morning. Then we'd run down the stairs to see the tree ablaze with light, our parents in their robes and dozens of wrapped packages scattered about the room. At that instant you were sure you'd get everything you wanted. In that moment Christmas was glorious. It would inevitable come crashing down around you as you opened the gifts. Cold economic realities would raise their head. No radio controlled planes in the Wiler house. Yes, we'd get a set of army men but it was the second best set, yes, we'd get a chemistry set but not the complete set in the catalog. A little knowledge is a dangerous, dangerous thing.
Still and all there was always next Christmas. And at least we could use the Johnny Reb cannon to blow the Christmas balls off the tree one by one. Then there'd be turkey and a week of no school. Not bad, not bad.

Interferon and me

2007-11-30T20:35:00.000-05:00

Remember when I got my spleen removed? Not so long ago, really. End of May. Anyway the reason for taking out a perfectly good, working organ was so I could tolerate the medicine for Hepatitis C. That would be Interferon. It's one great drug. You know how most drugs say they can cause skin irritation or diarrhea or shortness of breath? Well this little concoction has, as it's principal contraindication, SUICIDAL IDEATION AND SUICIDAL ACTUALIZATION, and it looks just like that, all in caps on the rather lengthy label. Nice.
The secondary problems are pleasant as well. Flu like symptoms. Anyway I started my interferon regimen last night and spent the next six hours shaking like a leaf in a storm. Teeth chattering, heart pumping, holy shit kind of "flu like symptom". Then I got up and went to work.
Tonight I do it again. You might be asking how long are you supposed to take this nasty drug Jack? 9-12 months I would reply. Every fucking day for 9-12 months I get to induce flu like symptoms. We'll leave off the drastic personality changes and the likelihood my red cells will all die or that my hair, such as it is, will fall out.
Still and all, the alternative is being dead. So my friends, to bed, to flu, to life!

Smells

2007-11-28T21:20:00.000-05:00

The world of childhood is very, very small. One or two blocks, a school, some friends, your parents, your grandparents, your brothers, your sisters. Nothing much else. And as it shrinks smaller things grow. Like smells, like odors, like scents. Only an idiot wouldn't be on Proust's side. Of course his Madelaine's could conjure up a world. Of course.
But what smells and where. Start in our basement at 206 W. Mantua Ave. The chlordane wafting from beneath the porch, the smells of melting plastic toys over the ping pong table, the chemistry set and it's sulphur, the oil from the oil tank, the oil for the tools, the bleaches and soaps and detergents. The smell of Lava for removing the oil from the tools and the tank. Maybe the floor had just been painted deep red so there is the smell of the new oil based paint. The mildew. The cool rush of cold from the freezer and the smell of that cold as it fills your hot face on a summer's day. The smell of your dirty shirts and socks piled by the washing machine.
Then up the stairs and into the kitchen and of course there is the smell of food. But also the ever present cigarette smoke and the wax your mother applies to the linoleum and the dish detergent. Joy. And on the kitchen window sill there is an old ceramic bowl with an old, old hard boiled egg and one day the egg breaks and there is that dense sulphur too. And garbage on a hot summer day. Bacon frying on a Saturday morning and butter browning in the iron skillet to make scrambled eggs. On the holidays a turkey in the oven and stuffing and those glorious smells and then out the back door to the garage and the smells of all the things stacked there.
Around the garage the wisteria, purple and thick with scent driving the carpenter bees insane as each of them devour the garage. The tar of the roof shingles, the oil on the floor of the garage from the cars, the three in one oil for the bike chains, the smell of chrome polish, the odor of the wax candle as you rub it on your sleds runners. The paint cans, the cobwebs and dust, the dry smell of old, old wood, dry in the South Jersey heat.
Just to the side the smells of the vegetable garden, the rotting lettuce, the tomatoes thick with smell, the sweet corn, the deep rich brown earth, nearly black and thick with the scent of decay and rebirth, behind the garden the compost and the tree and the scents of barks and old rotting leaves. The air in fall always thick with the smell of rotting leaves.
When Johanna and I were in Barnsboro for Thanksgiving we sat and watched thousands of leaves swirling from the trees in the wind and she said it never smells like this in Jersey City and it never does. The smell of burning leaves mingled with the smell of the cigar from the man tending the fire in the street mixed with the scent of new macadam. Almost like licorice.
And grass and hay. New mown grass, piles of rotting grass, fresh uncut grass. Hay, and weeds, and skunk cabbage. Dead squirrels on a path. Dead mice under a log. The swamp smell of the creek and the creek mud. The smell of your wet woolen shirts and gloves.
The smell of your dog or your cat just in from the rain. The smell of the air just after a thunder storm. The smell just before it snows. The smell of the chlorine pool, the cedar lake water, the smells of my grandmother's paints.
Too many to name too many to remember.
Not enough time to sit back and inhale and recollect. They come rushing in like unwanted ghosts at inopportune moments. When I was very ill and lying in my bedroom I realized my room smelled just like it did when I was six. How odd. How unbidden. How unwanted.
The smells of your first sex and your first after shave and your first blood wiped from your nose in your first fight.
Breath them in. Breath them out. It's like watching or listening. Attend.

Leftovers

2007-11-23T06:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was spent in the bosom of my family at my step brother Bobby Murphy's house in Barnsboro. He and his girlfriend Beth live there with Beth's son. It's a beautiful new home at the end of a long gravel driveway. Johanna and I drove down and after negotiating the NJ Turnpike and its traffic arrived at Mick's to meet Mick and my nephew Doug. From there it was on to my niece Louise house in Oak Valley to pick up Louise and her new husband Paul and their infant daughter Mackenzie. It was a warm Thanksgiving day and we arrived moments later at Bobby's. The house was full, my brother Ted and his children, Kelly, Mark, & Justin, my sister Mary, her husband Will, and their son Billy. And then all the Murphy's; Bobby and Beth, Kathleen and her husband Nick and their children, Nick & Victoria, John and his daughter Nicolle, Kenny and his wife Lori and their children, Owen and Gracie. Bah, humbug.
At any rate the garage had a tv in it with the football game on and there was a fridge stocked with beer and cheese and crackers and my sister's signature dip and veggies with other dips. Actually Kenny and Lori came just 45 minutes before the dinner but they were most welcome as they brought the two turkey's we would consume.
We drank and laughed and then sat down to the feast. My brother Mick was loud and big and funny as only Mick can be. He and I embarrassed Doug who was handsome and thoughtful. Johanna spent the night holding Mackenzie and looking beautiful. There were calls for more Beaujolais and beer and then the pies and coffee and more talk and laughter and then the sad parting.
It was a grand night.
Johanna and I drove back to Mick's where we couldn't sleep so at 11:30, a bit sobered up, I drove us home. Where we slept like babies with Cookie and Milo.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and most of all to Mick and Doug. You'll note your names occur more than anyone's. While I was in South Jersey Doug asked me why he was never in the blog. I reminded him it's primarily a memoir of my life in Wenonah in the early sixties. He said why don't you have me travel back in time and then I could be in it. Well, Doug, here you are and it's in 2007 and everyone is happy and there is no misery or sorrow and what could be better? What indeed?
God Bless us All! Remember those who have less than us and offer what you can, not just during the holidays, but all the year round.
Happy Thanksgiving!