Sunday, June 28, 2009

May Day mayday



May Day was something we had to do.  No one, not one single teacher, ever explained why—or told us the significance of the day. To us, it meant endless, hot rehearsals, and carrying our chairs up and down the ramps.

The ramps led from the top of the main school to the playground.  In the center, where the two ramps met, was the position of the teacher on recess duty. From here a whistle could be blown and orders shouted.

The pain about May Day was two-fold. First we  had to learn some dumb dance the usually involved do-si-do and alamand left—often dressed in crepe paper costumes that bled unto our clothes.  Second, we had to lug our chairs from the class, up and down the ramps, to the playground.


I don’t know about Bo Flex and weight lifting, but lugging that chair must have given me some sort of guns.  Back and forth—every rehearsal.  Up the ramp, down the ramp. Sitting in the sun.  No one even thought about skin cancer in those days. The only shade on the playground were some slim bottle brush trees. 

When the day actually came, it was special.  My dad took the day off, went to Bob’s Big Boy and brought us a carry out of dripping hamburgers.  That was pretty cool.  And on the most wonderful May Day, Montie Montana came to the playground on his horse and it galloped around the handball courts on rubber shoes.

 

 

Bikes


Lest this sounds too Father Knows Best, I got my first bike on Christmas Day.  It wasn’t the perfectly new, shiny bike with a ribbon.  It was the bike that was second-hand, balloon-tired and royal blue-recently painted by my father. An unknown relative had owed it before.

My sister and went up to our neighbors that morning, and when I returned, there was the bike.  It was pretty ugly—and that oxymoron fits the bike to a tee.   But it was a bike and it worked.

I knew there was no way in hell that I’d be able to get up Angus Street like the Clifton brothers that lived at the top of hill and had perfected a zigzag approach to the slope. No—this was a heavy thing that had to be walked up the hill.  It had foot brakes too.  But, I did get it up to speed going DOWN the hill—by peddling.

I can’t quite remember when or how or why—though there are some memories of saving up allowance—but I finally got my first brand new bike. I think I was in the sixth grade. It was a royal blue Raleigh with three speeds, hand brakes and a pump attached to the frame.  My dad and I bought it at Broadway Hollywood and were told that it would be delivered to the house.  When it actually arrived early, I was ecstatic.  I saved the British instruction papers for years.

My friend got a bike around the same time and we used them to explore all around Silver Lake.

In 1963, after President Kennedy was assassinated, we used the official day of mourning to bike down Griffith Park Blvd to the park.  We went to the pony rides, which had always been my favorite place in the world. The man told me I was too heavy to ride the ponies anymore. I wasn’t overweight; I was twelve.  Then it became a real day of mourning.

I rode that bike until 1972 when I gave it away to a family in Colorado with two boys who probably didn’t want an English girl’s bike with three speeds.  I still miss it. 

 

 

Friday, June 26, 2009

First Grade and First Date

My first grade teacher was a far cry from kindergarten’s Mrs. Anderson. Mrs. M. was plainly odd. She was probably menopausal and fighting it with red lipstick and dyed blonde hair.

For some reason she took a shine to me and would give me gifts in the semi privacy of the “cloakroom.” Not too many kids in those days knew what a “cloak” was. So it sounded pretty exotic. The cloakroom was a rectangular area with hooks along the length of the wall for children to hang up their coats and hats. We didn’t have a lot of coats and hats in Los Angeles.  It was also the place where the teachers had their desks.

 On one cloakroom tryst I was given a doll and on another occasion a small silver bracelet that was pretty bendy—which I learned meant “cheap”.    I think my mother thought Mrs. M. was a bit odd too, and the gifts stopped.  But I did get the honor of cleaning out the fish tank; a most highly coveted duty.

Learning to read was a big deal. Dick and Jane and their dog Spot were part of our lives. Mrs. M. would ask us to read silently and then raise our hand when we had finished.  Every single time Nelson finished first.  If a six year old can be cynical, I was.  I knew he was faking it.

Nelson and I were friends. I knew he was under the pressure of being an only child whose parents expected him to excel.  He’s probably a lawyer now.

I had a crush on Nelson.  I loved the way that little beads of sweat would form on his upper lip when he was hot.  I couldn’t do that because I didn’t sweat—and that made it seem glamorous.  When we walked to school (because it was safe for six year olds to do that then) he would tell me how to regulate my breathing when I ran. When I was invited to play at his house after school, I watched as his mother made him change from his “school clothes” to his “play clothes.” She then made him practice reading for a half hour as I dawdled away my time waiting to play with his archery set.

Nelson had freckles and the perfect blond crew cut. And when I invited him to dinner and a Dodgers game with my father, my mother made a meal of it.  Not food wise—cleaning wise.  I had to clean out every drawer in my room, surfaces and closet. Now I wonder if Nelson even went into my room.  I only recall him eating on the patio.

The Dodgers had only just moved from Brooklyn and didn’t yet have their own stadium. We went to the L.A. Coliseum.  The one built for the 1932 Olympics.

It was my first date.  Dad, Nelson, The Dodgers and Don Drysdale.

 

 

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

THe Kings of the Hood

Two middle aged Jewish brothers were the local kings of commerce in Silver Lake. At least in my mind.

One ran the deli inside The Hub Mart, the neighborhood grocery store. The deli made the best kosher pickles and marinated lamb shish kabobs on the planet. The chunks of lamb were at least two inches square and shoved onto thick wooden skewers. In the summer my friend and I would walk to The Hub, sometimes barefoot, and buy a pickle.  Three days later my mother would comment that she could still smell the garlic.

The other brother owned Benny’s—so I assumed his name was Benny. His shop was the source of all comic books, magazines, pixie sticks, cheap toys, cap guns, water pistols and, most importantly, empty cigar boxes. We used these to store our school supplies. Benny would let you stand and read the comics---for a while.  I loved Superman, Superboy and Supergirl. There was also “Hollywood Confidential” that always looked at bit titillating and sometimes had a free sample of Tangee lipstick stuck to the covers. Benny’s was just across the parking lot from The Hub.

 In early September, just as school was to start again, it was essential to go to Benny's for a cigar box—the wooden ones being the most coveted. I learned about The Dutch Masters from one of Benny’s boxes and also learned to love the residual aroma of cigar tobacco. On my 18th birthday I went to Bennies and bought my first cigar.

On the corner of the main intersection were competing gas stations that were always giving away free dishes or glassware.  It was at the Mobil station, having our tank filled by a uniformed man, that my father taught me the lesson that nothing is free.  Years later, that Mobil man would donate blood to my mother when she needed more than a dozen transfusions.

Next to the Mobil was a grand old two-story house set back from the road by a small parking lot and garden.  This was Tokyo Florists and was the closest I would get to being in Japan as a five year old. The business was family run and they all lived in the house. It’s still there and I bought my wedding flowers on the front porch thirty years ago.

 

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Kindergarten Baby Born in the Gravy


Because there were so many baby boomers, Ivanhoe Elementary School had to have two classes a year.  Depending upon your date of birth you either started school in September or January.  I was in the January group. 

Our classes were filled with names that no one wants to name their kids today.  Almost all the girls had middle names that were either Ann(e) or Lee. Their first names were Lois, Bonnie, Kitty, Shelly—lots of Shellys—Carol, Susan, Kathy, Denise, Nancy, Janice, Monica, Janine, and Jill.  The boys had names like Greg, Harvey, Gary, Nelson, Stanley, Duane, Mel, Raymond, Curtis, Owen, Gerry, Buzz, Dink, Jim and Pudgy.

 I challenge you to find any of these names in a contemporary elementary school.

Kindergarten was only half day. You either went in the morning or the afternoon.  Mrs. Anderson was right out of central casting from “Leave It to Beaver.”  She was old and kind and had gray hair and wore pencil skirts.  When someone erred—always a boy—they were sent to sit by the radiator.  On rainy days this seemed like something quite inviting.

 I envied the boys their cozy flannel shirts and Levis. Their hair was either a crew cut or a Brylcreemed short back and sides.  Girls were always in dresses with their hair done by attentive mothers who had time to braid, barrette, and ribbon. One of the memories of my grandfather’s death was that my mother had to leave the house suddenly and we went to school, the first time ever, and somehow shamefully, without having our hair done.

 Mrs. Anderson liked to read to us.  Her stories left me a bit bored and in trying to entertain myself during one of her “on the rug” sessions I spent the time holding out my tongue to see how dry I could get it. Mrs. Anderson was not impressed and told me it was “unladylike.”

 I guess one of life’s big shockers hit me in Mrs. Anderson’s class.  It was Halloween and we were busy coloring inside the lines of pumpkin on a worksheet. All I could think about was how it was so unfair to have to go to school on a day that I thought was a national holiday.  In my home, Halloween was second only to Christmas.

 Always mindful of health (i.e. weight gain), my mother didn’t serve a lot of pasta.  They were called “noodles” in those days. My father’s childhood had been filled with meals stretched with flour and water, and he was not a big fan of “noodles.” But on Halloween we were always treated to the quintessential comfort food; macaroni and cheese. “Because it’s orange” and fit with the theme.  How “wilted lettuce” with vinegar and bacon got into the mix, is anyone’s idea.  Dessert was two scoops of Baskin Robbins: black licorice and pumpkin.

Mrs. Anderson’s class was also the first time that I realized my family had different standards than others. One girl in my glass had been given a wristwatch. When I asked for one I was told in no uncertain terms that I was too young and not responsible enough. When I finally got one, a few years later, I found that I hated the sound of the ticking and saw it as a countdown to death.

The kindergarten had its own playground and compound; one tree, a jungle gym--surrounded by chain link fence. I never really noticed this until I made the rank of first grader and was on the other side of the fence.  “Kindergarten baby, born in the gravy” we chanted through the fence. We were “big kids” now.

Ivanhoe Elementary School

Silver Lake and the Discouraging Word

My first memory of Silver Lake is of standing in my crib on Angus Street, chewing on the paint of the rail, while the neighborhood rocked during an earthquake.  I remember my mother being pleased that I was so calm. It might have been all the lead in the paint.

The lake itself, actually two reservoirs built in 1906 and named for a member of the Board of Water Commissioners, was the focal point of my Los Angeles neighborhood in the 1950’s.

 It was at the base of the lake that I attended preschool; where I learned to paint on an easel, use public toilets, and learned the word “impetigo.” The teachers had advised my mother that she should take some classes about dealing with a child like me.  She did, but they were the wrong classes.

Our neighborhood was a postwar hodgepodge of ethnicities. The Chinese would teach us about using ginger when cooking broccoli, introduce us to the best restaurants in Chinatown and baby-sit us. The Japanese who had made the transition from internment camps to middle class homes were eager for their children to excel. Poor Jimmy Yamashita had to suffer the teasing that came, not because he was Japanese, but because his name had “shit” in it. There were Hispanics, some of whom spoke no English. One such family sent their son, named Jesus, to our school but he lasted less than a month.

My parents were very social and befriended many of the young families in Silver Lake. One in particular remains firmly in my memory.  They were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and had the most exotic names I had ever heard up to that point: Hottie and Zelda. From them we got a white mouse named Snowball. And for years, more than I’m willing to admit, I thought the refrain from “Home on the Range” was “where Zelda has heard a discouraging word…” My curiosity about the “discouraging word” lasted much longer than the mouse.