Corner Stores

                                              

Gin

No matter where we lived in Pittsfield in the 1950s,  one of the first things I did as soon as we were settled in a new place would be to locate the nearest corner store.  Corner stores were what we always called them.  Another name might be a variety store or even a neighborhood store. Most of these stores were at the intersection of two streets but even if they weren't on a corner we still called them corner stores.  The ones I remember were always on the street level of a two story building.  The family who ran the store often lived above it. 

These stores were not the kinds of convenience stores we know today: full of snacks, brewed coffee, and microwaved fast food, even beer and wine. The corner stores when I was a kid were small grocery stores, mom and pop operations.  You’d expect to find cigarettes, soda, potato chips and candy but it might come as a surprise that some offered fresh baked bread which they would slice as you waited.  Others had a meat-grinding machine. When my mother sent me to get hamburger, I waited while they ground it fresh. Just the amount you requested. A few of the larger stores had produce like potatoes, onions, apples and bananas.  In the days before the large-scale super markets and once a week shopping, these small family run stores were a staple of every neighborhood.

The corner store is where I'd go to get milk for my mom, candy for me, and the Sunday paper for my parents.  Every Sunday, while my parents were still in bed,  I'd walk to the corner store to pick up the waiting Sunday New York Herald Tribune.  While Bill's family lived in the Boston area and was partial to the Globe, out in western Mass when we thought of a big city, it was New York that came to mind.  When we began to receive more TV stations in Pittsfield it was the New York independent stations we watched.  When my parents wanted a city vacation to listen to jazz, watch a show, or go to museums, it was New York they visited.   And when they wanted to leisurely look over a Sunday paper, the New York Herald Tribune was their choice. 

From our house on Stanley Avenue, the walk was down the hill, along Springside Avenue to Dartmouth, just because I liked walking by the Crane School, then down Dartmouth to Dalton Avenue. I’d then walk a block along Dalton to where it intersected with Harvard to the store. This was the classic corner store.  Yes, it was right on the corner, in a brick two story building, one large store window looking out on Harvard, the other window taking in the view on Dalton with the door right in between.  I’d walk up Harvard to get home completing the loop. I was only in third grade but felt very confident doing this errand for my parents every week.

When we lived on Dewey,  my walk to get the paper was much shorter, a few blocks down Dewey to Linden.  Right by the bridge on Linden was the store. From my house on Plunkett it was another easy walk down to Tyler Street where I had to cross Tyler and then a block up at Parker to the store. At this point crossing busy Tyler was no big deal.  After all by this time I’m in 6th grade! 

When we lived on Montgomery, even though I had a bike, I always walked.  The store was literally around the corner, a block down Weller at Lenox Avenue. 

In the summer the walk to get the paper was pleasant, warm usually, even at 8am. In the winter it took longer to put on the outside clothes than to do the walk.  It was never very far.  On rainy mornings, I’d toss on my raincoat.  I never liked carrying an umbrella.  On the way home I’d tuck the paper inside the coat to keep it dry.

Getting a Sunday paper was a tradition that lasted most of my childhood.  I never had to pay for it.  My father  reserved the paper, paying ahead of time.  Our paper wasn't on display with the others.  It was under the counter.  I simply had to mention my father's name for it to be handed to me. That made me feel special.  The paper was thick, thicker in the fall with ads anticipating the approaching gift-giving holidays.  The outside section was always the comics, or as we called them, the funny paper.   It looked like the paper was wrapped up like a present in the colorful comics.  I'd walk home trying not to peek at Peanuts which was featured on the front.  I didn't want to spoil the pleasure I would have later by stretching out on the living room floor with the comics spread out in front of me.

Once home, I'd heat water for instant coffee, black with sugar for my dad and just black for my mom.  Then I’d bring the paper and the coffee up to their bedroom, keeping the comic section for me. Later in the afternoon, after Sunday dinner, it was my parents’ turn to lie on the living room rug with the paper scattered in front of them.  This was known as “looking at the ads”.  I always thought this was funny as these were not stores we would shop at, like Neiman Marcus, or things we would buy, like Danish modern furniture.  But it meant a lot to my parents as they obviously enjoyed doing this every week. Perhaps it was a way of expressing their shared taste in the finer things of life even though they realized most of it was beyond their means.  But not always.  One year  my mother pointed out an ad for turquoise jewelry. Santa must have been listening. It showed up under our tree that Christmas.

My favorite corner store was the one I went to on Dewey when I was in fourth and fifth grades.  Technically it wasn't a corner store as it was in the middle of the block, but it was run in the traditional way by an elderly Jewish couple who lived above the store. Here I learned to enjoy halvah. Halvah is a confection popular across the Mideast, an ethnic food.  But I didn’t know anything about that.  To me it was just another kind of candy, as familiar to me as a Milky Way. In fact when we moved again and halvah wasn't available at that corner store, I was surprised.  I think it’s likely one of the owners on Dewey gave me a piece to try one day.  I doubt I would buy something I didn't already know I would like.  The Dewey store is also where I  bought toasted pumpkin seeds, a snack my friends in Tucker school introduced me to.  If halvah had n Mid-eastern connection, then the pumpkin seeds were a part of  the African-American culture in the neighborhood.  Each store was a reflection of the community within which it was located.  (See the blog, Neighborhood Cultures, for more on these differences.)

I liked being in that store on Dewey. There were counters on two sides and at the back. Behind the counters were tall shelves filled with cans and boxes. The store always seemed dark.  There must have been lights hanging from the ceiling but what I most remember is the light coming in from the front windows was so bright it left most of the rest of the store in darkness. I was fascinated with the tall shelves, the whole layout of the store. 

My parents had a “tab” at the store.  If my mother ran out of detergent as she was doing laundry, she would send me to the store to get some.  I’d walk in the store and say, “My mother needs soap powder.” No need for money. The person would write something down, hand me the detergent and I’d be on my way.  I assume my parents paid the tally every week.

You did have to ask the clerk for what you wanted.  You couldn’t get it yourself. The clerk would take a long pole with a grabber at the end to reach up to the top shelf to take down a box of laundry powder.   I wonder what system they had for arranging the goods they sold and how they remembered where to go if, instead of detergent, somebody asked for  a can of soup.

I loved that pole grabber device and longed to use it.  I never had the chance, but the couple who ran the store did give me an order pad one day after noticing my interest.  I loved that pad.  Two colors of paper with a sheet of carbon between them so whatever you wrote on the top layer would come through to the lower. One copy for the customer and a copy for the store.  It was set up so that after you tore off the duplicate order slip, you could move the carbon paper attached at the back to go between the next pair of order pages. 

It was organized with rows and columns.  This was the paper and pencil version of Excel. Pre-printed on the pad were places for the name and price of the item, quantity purchased, and final price. Once each row was completed, it would be totaled at the bottom right.  I loved filling out those forms with imaginary purchases.  At home with pad in hand, I would raid my mother’s pantry setting up a store in the dining room.   I cut up pieces of paper to make small squares that I could tape onto the cans and boxes to mark the prices. (Oh, what I would have been able to do with Post-its!)  My cooperative ever-patient mother would make purchases so I could write them up.  I particularly liked it when she ”bought” two of something so I could fill out the quantity, price per item and total in addition to the total amount at the bottom. No money necessary.  My mother also had a tab at my store.

Whenever I had a nickel to spend, my focus was on the case that held the penny candy  Again, this was not a self-serve situation.  One of the store people would stand behind the candy counter with a small white paper bag awaiting my decisions.  There were no brand names. Nothing pre-packaged.  It was all there in front of me in individual trays waiting for me to decide.

I would take a long time making my selections unaware that I was monopolizing the store clerk for a five-cent purchase.  But this was important. I had a lot of options to weigh. From the point if view of the clerk here was a little kid standing silently in front of the candy counter. But there was a lot of conversation going on inside my head.

"No way I am buying those small wax bottles with colored-liquid inside. I did that once. What a waste. They aren't really candy.  Neither are the wax lips. Hmm. how about a spearmint leaf?  I like that flavor and they are pretty big and thick, Yes. One of those.  The atomic fire balls are big and they last a long time, but they're too hot. I do want something hot though. I know.  A cinnamon hard candy.  They last almost as long as a root beer barrel. Ok. That's two cents. What else?  A different flavor from what I have already.  How about that long strip of paper with the colored dots. You get a lot of them but you eat a lot of the paper as well. I know, a mint julep.  Ok, that's three.  Lets see.  What other things are there?  The marshmallow shaped like an ice cream cone? A tootsie roll? I don't have anything chocolate yet.  No. Some malted milk balls.  I think you get two of those for a penny. One more penny to spend.  Bazooka bubble gum?  They have a comic inside. But my mouth gets tired chewing gum.  A Squirrel Nut chewy bar?  Nope. I know, that jelly-type candy that looks like a slice of watermelon. I like the coconut on top of it.  That's my five cents.  Next time, I'll get a licorice stick or lollipop.  The Tootsie pops are two cents, but I guess you have to think of it as two candies in one."

Most of the time the money to buy these goodies came from returning empty soda bottles to the store.  With a nickel in my hand I wouldn’t want to purchase a regular candy bar. Those were for grownups. I didn’t want to commit all my money for one flavor when I could get five different tastes instead. That was the appeal of the penny candy, the variety.

When we moved to Plunkett, we were closer to more stores.  I’m older now (sixth grade), have a bike, and Tyler Street, a main thoroughfare, is right down the hill from my house. One option was the store that my brother worked at, right at Tyler and Plunkett.  It was on a corner but wasn't really just a corner store, more like a market.  It had fresh produce, both lettuce and cabbage as I related in my Musings on Embarrassments blog entry, a full meat counter, and shelves with boxes and cans that were self serve.  This store was a transition from corner store to self-serve, once-a-week super markets that were beginning to show up in Pittsfield but weren’t yet part of my family's shopping schedule.

There were two other more traditional corner stores on Tyler, each with its own personality.  My favorite was Kirk's Variety. This was just a block east of my brother’s store.  Kirk’s was a fun place to go because they had a wide range of toys on display. Kites, balsa airplanes, model building sets. Also a selection of paperback books which were just coming onto the market in Pittsfield at that point. I never got the Sunday paper at Kirk’s.  This was a store for me. I’d look through the paperbacks and also this strange, funny magazine I discovered, Mad.  I particularly liked the fold-in on the back page even though I didn’t know it was making fun of fold outs.  I thought it was clever the way both pictures worked, unfolded and folded.  I knew I could buy a copy and bring it home.  My father thought the satire was clever.

Across Tyler from St. Mary’s church and school was the store I went to to get the Sunday paper. I don’t know why my father didn’t send me to Kirk’s.  Maybe they didn’t reserve papers there. I imagine being right across from the school, this store must have been jammed every afternoon during the school year.

This was also the store where I discovered Mallo Cups.  Before Reese’s peanut butter cups became popular, there were different kinds of “cup" candy.  The Boyer Brothers made several varieties of the cup candy.  One, self-described, was called Cup-O-Cocoanut.   A peanut butter cup covered with chocolate was called a Jamboree. A Fluffernutter was a layer of peanut butter and a layer of marshmallow covered with chocolate.  My favorite of the Brother’s concoctions was the regular Mallo Cup, marshmallow inside and chocolate outside

But there was more to this candy than just a treat. The Mallo Cup sat on a square cardboard coaster inside its wrapper. The cardboard coaster was printed with one of the letters that spelled out M-A-L-L-O-C-U-P.   If you collected all 8 letters and sent them, along with a dime to cover postage, the factory would send you a box of twelve Mallo Cups!  I was committed to this.  No more worrying about variety.  Even time I bought candy, I went for the Mallo Cup.  I think it took me over a year, but one day there it was in the mail. A dozen Mallo Cups. It’s likely I shared the candy with friends who had given me letters to complete my collection.

The years we lived at Montgomery Avenue, from seventh grade through college, marked the gradual decline of the traditional corner store.  When we first lived on Montgomery, there were two or three stores all within walking distance. The closest was on the corner of Weller and Lenox, just a block from my house.  Like most of the corner stores, it was really a house with a store built into the bottom level on the front.   One or my favorites things to get there was what my family called Vienna bread.  I don’t know what it had to do with Vienna but it was a bread with a thin and crispy crust and a light and airy center. It was delivered fresh to the store and they would slice it for you. Nothing better for toast, especially French toast.

A block over on Briggs, heading down toward Waconah, was another corner store.  I'd go this extra distance if my mother wanted hamburg.  They had a meat grinder and would grind the beef while I waited.

By the time I became a teenager many of the neighborhood corner stores had closed. But now I had a bike and could go further afield.  Now my interest was with soda. (Bill from Boston called it “tonic.”)  The best place to buy soda was from a store with a cooler. Now that I was bicycling around Pittsfield, I began to know the stores that had the best coolers and the best selection.  The coolers were  large rectangular metal boxes with metal racks from which the bottles of soda hung suspended in icy cold water.  No cans, only bottles. The flavors were myriad. Birch beer, strawberry, cherry, raspberry, cream, grape, lemon-lime, orange, root beer, ginger ale, ginger beer, and of course cola.   On a hot summer day there was nothing like guiding a soda bottle through the maze until it was free of the box and ready for you to drink.

During the years I lived at Montgomery, our family's shopping routine changed. My parents started going to the big national grocery stores like A&P or First National.  So did most of our neighbors. The one-stop shopping, self serve grocery stores were becoming more common as was the idea of shopping once a week, usually on pay day. The family-run corner stores gave way to 7-11's and other convenience stores often linked to gas stations. Penny candy was disappearing.  Nickel candy bars were the cheapest kind of candy.  Some like Mounds or Almond Joy were even a dime!  Kids who said they wanted soda really meant Coke or Pepsi, not all the flavors I chose from. Adults who wanted fresh bread or hamburg went to super markets in cars.  They didn't send their kids walking down to a corner store for such things. 

Still, I remember all those Sunday morning walks with fondness, feeling I was doing something special for my parents.  Here I was, just a kid, but entrusted with this important job.  Because of me, my mom and dad had those wonderful moments together lying on the living room floor enjoying their Sunday newspaper.

Under the Covers

                                                    

Bill

Everyone needs a way to relate to people who are not part of their everyday lives and to experience places that are not a part of their ordinary existence. For a few there is travel. Actually see the Pyramids. Walk down into the Grand Canyon.  For a nine year-old kid living in Hyde Park in the 50s, this wasn’t an option.  My family took day trips and occasionally spent a week in a small cabin down along the ocean. New Hampshire was a destination when an uncle lived up in Seabrook.  One summer we spent an entire day at a park on the coast of Maine.  

Egypt and Arizona, though, were places I never expected to visit. Growing up my window on the world was through movies and books. Guided by images and words I was able to imagine the many places I’d never visit, was introduced to people I’d never meet (In some cases would never want to meet.) and allowed to do things I might never do.  Still, I needed a physical place to allow my imagination room to expand.  A safe place.  A quiet place.  In my situation, a dark place. A movie theatre is a good choice for some. But for me as a young kid that special place was in my bed under the covers.

My younger brother and I shared a room on the larger side of what most people would call the attic, the space under the roof.  My older brother had the smaller space on the other side of the attic.  When we moved to the house on Prospect Street, the upstairs was unfinished.  We had a wide plank floor put in by my father before we moved  but there were no walls, just the slant of the roof, and no ceiling, just the peak of the roof.  

A real room with all the walls and the ceiling and a nice hardwood floor would come later (See the blog entry A House Becomes a Home.) but I was fine with what we had in those early days. I just wanted a place to go, a bed to sleep in, a floor to play on, a window to look out of.  I had all of those upstairs.  I also had a place under the covers.

My bed was a single bed positioned so that one side of it was close to the slant of the roof.  We had insulation stapled between the rafters.  I soon realized the shiny aluminum part that faced the room was distinctly fragile.  Just about anything would tear it.  Throwing a ball around,  rough-housing, even rubber-tipped arrows could tear it.  So I often had bits of the inside batting falling on my bed; sometimes the aluminum would hang over my bed so that we had to tape it back up.  The problems with that insulation was a big factor in my father finally putting up a ceiling.

To get away from the insulation situation I’d pull my covers, or in the summer just the sheet, over my head.  With my knees up I’d form a little tent.  Not bad.  Kind of cozy.  My own little world under here.  I liked it.  But when the room light was turned off, “Time to go to sleep.” it was dark.  Then I’d reach out under my bed for the flashlight.

My father worked as an electrician at the power plant at the Navy Yard in South Boston. So the flashlights we had came from his work.  They were Navy issue, made of hard grey plastic in a water-proof housing.  Pretty indestructible.  My father also fixed people’s TV sets as a second job.  He often had one of those flashlights in hand as he looked in the back of a TV to figure out why there was no picture.  As you can imagine, we had no lack of flashlights in our house. I particularly liked the ones with which you could narrow or widen the beam of light.  Sometimes I’d prefer just the narrow beam.  It was brighter.  Other times, when I read, I’d twist the lens cover a half a turn for a wider beam.  Less bright but more light over a wider space.

Is there anything more fun to a kid than a flashlight?  It’s not a tool to us, it’s a toy. Under the covers, in the darkness, with just a flashlight, it was always interesting.  Welcome to shadowland.  There are my knees, and the shadows of my knees, elongated and spooky along the underside of the covers. I knew how to make a rabbit with three fingers.  Moving the flashlight back and forth, the rabbit skitters around in a panic down by my feet. I turn the flashlight rapidly on and off beginning to realize it takes my pupils a moment to adjust from the darkness to the brightness.

What would happen, I wonder, if I shine the flashlight directly into my eyes? Closing one eye, I put the flashlight right up to the open one.  All is bright yellow, then spots began to show up.  Uh, oh.  I quickly shut the flashlight off.  The spots continue.  They began to float around, coalescing in the corners of the darkness before beginning to fade away.  Uh, oh.  I like doing this.

I sometimes think that shining the light in my eyes and then settling back to enjoy the visual manifestations was akin to kids in the 60s and 70s who experimented with acid and other drugs.  Shining the flashlight in my eyes in this dark environment under the covers took me out of reality.  Did I have a need to be taken out of reality? An interesting question but I do know there was something about that dark, confined space that invited my initial exploration of sensory experiences.  

Sometimes I’d shine the light in both eyes and then shut them very tightly. Now I’m falling.  The whole bed is coming with me.  Down into some deeper darkness.  I quickly open my eyes.  I’m dizzy.  I snap the flashlight back on.  I do it again.  I feel like I’m moving out of my body.  The feelings are unique, and odd.  A return to reality is as simple as lifting the covers away from my face to let the cool room air flood over me.

A flashlight was more than a means to a sensory end.  It allowed me to read under the covers. And a flashlight was essential for View-Master, a toy stereoscope for looking at 3-D color pictures.  From such a modest little device, a black Bakelite apparatus with a slot at the top to load the View-Master reels and a lever on the side to advance from picture to picture, it was surprising how realistic those scenes looked.

I didn’t have many reels.  Back in the 50s they were mostly travel pictures, as View-master put it, “Seven more wonders of the world.”  For some reason all the reels I had were of the American West.  No matter.  They took me somewhere else.

In my bed, the covers tented over my head, the View-Master and reels beside me, I’m trying to position the flashlight so it will shine into the back of the View-master.  This was the tricky part since two hands were required for operation, one to hold the View-Master and one to advance the lever.  This left no hand to hold the flashlight.  It's a matter of laying it on your stomach or somehow holding it between your legs at just the right angle.

I never seemed to get tired of looking again and again at the few reels I had.  Scenes of the Painted Desert, of the Black Hills with the presidents carved in stone on Mount Rushmore, and dizzying views of the Royal Gorge in Colorado.  My favorite may have been one reel called Life with the Cowboys, Cattle Roundup and Branding, USA.  One scene in particular was especially vivid.  A cowboy holding a branding iron stands above a cow.  White smoke infuses the scene.  It was something I had never seen before.  Yes, poor cow, but I was more interested in the wispy smoke that permeated the picture. With the scene in vivid color and 3-D right in front of my eyes, I felt smoke drifting right into my bed. Virtual reality before its time. 

Reading under the covers required a different configuration for the flashlight.  Now I had to try to balance it on the pillow or on my shoulder in order to get it to shine on the pages of a book in front of me.  It meant every time I moved a little bit, adjusting the pillow, trying to get more comfortable, the flashlight would fall down onto the sheets.  I tried to read lying on my side but with my legs down the tent was down too.  It did get hot under there at times.  Then I’d throw the covers off quickly discovering I was not on a ship at sea or on a deserted island as described in the book I had balanced on my chest.  I’m just in my room. Often I’d fall asleep, both the book and the flashlight falling somewhere until I discovered them again in the morning.

The books I’d read included comic books (Yes, I know Gin.  They are not books!), library books and books my sister Mildred had when she was a kid. Mildred is the reason I read some of the Five Little Peppers series.  Yeah, there were five of them along with their widowed mother living in some impoverished New England town. It’s not a book I read much of.  It seemed old-fashioned, mannered.  I didn’t know then the books had been written in the 1880s and ‘90s.  I liked the kids though, especially the older ones. 

Another book I attempted, flashlight in hand, was one my father had given me for Christmas.  It was one of his favorites. He thought I would like it as well. Two Years Before the Mast is about a Harvard graduate, Richard Dana, who signs on as a sailor on a two-masted brig sailing from Boston harbor in the 1830s.  His voyage takes him around Cape Horn  to California.  I would read it on and off so that if my father asked me about it I’d have something to say. It did not have the same impact on me as it did on my father.  I think my father enjoyed the romance of it. I found Dana’s vivid descriptions of what it was like to be sea sick and still climb the rigging to set sails, and the vivid portrayal of the captain’s philosophy of violent discipline, unsettling.   I also had trouble with the nautical jargon. Or maybe it was just beyond the intellectual reach of a nine year-old.  I do remember the illustrations in the copy I had.  Clicking the flashlight on and off at a picture of the ship would make it leap about as if it were caught in a storm at sea.  It apparently did not take much to amuse me once I got tired of reading about the technical aspects of trimming sails, trying to remember the difference between fore and aft, and just what sea legs were. 

Reading magazines under the covers presented more problems.  Every once in a while I’d bring a Life magazine to read with my trusty flashlight.  It took a while to adjust to the larger size and flexibility of a magazine as opposed to a more rigid book or something more easily held like a comic book. That’s why I usually read magazines down on the couch in the living room and not upstairs in my bed. And by reading I mean quickly turning from page to page to find something that interested me.  Not the news in front, not the editorial, not the articles about Truman or Churchill. Sometimes it didn’t take me long to go through it. Once, though, reading Life magazine became something much more.  

I remember this moment in my life very well.  A lot of things came together to contribute to it. It was a few days after Christmas, 1954.  The Life that had come a few days earlier was the Christmas issue featuring a detail of a painting by Bruegel on the cover.  I didn’t expect much when I brought it up to my room, tucked myself under the covers, adjusted my flashlight and began reading. If there is  Christmas magic, then it was with me that night.

The flashlight is set up.  The Life magazine is balanced against my legs.  I open the issue. Right off there’s an ad for Ipana toothpaste.  We use Colgate but I like that word, Ipana.  I also notice everyone in toothpaste ads has the straightest, brightest teeth.  Most teeth I see in the real world are somewhat yellow and full of imperfections.

I glance through the Letters to the Editors section.  Everyone loves the stories in the previous issue except for those complaining about the stories in the previous issue or offering corrections to the stories in the previous issue.  I like that Life includes some of each.

Usually I skip through the magazine but tonight I’m finding many of the pages have something of interest.  Of course, it helps there are lots of pictures.

The first article details the Christmas efforts of the Salvation Army.  I live a few miles from downtown Boston but my world is trees and fields. Featuring pictures of people in New York and Chicago asking for donations on the cold dark streets, offering help to strangers, giving hope and counsel to the sick and needy, this article was the beginning of an understanding of the true meaning of Christmas, or at least a simplified idea of the concept.

Reality is everywhere in those first few pages, Christmas notwithstanding. There’s a two page spread, “Images of the Week Before Christmas”.  A plane crash into Jamaica Bay in New York, people rioting in Greece over the status of Cyprus, the trial of Dr Samuel Sheppard accused of killing his wife. There’s also a picture of a baby staring with awe at the family’s Christmas tree. There is an article on Vietnam where “Christian refugees from Communism” prepare to celebrate Christmas in a partitioned Indochina. Vietnam would haunt me and many other people for the next twenty years and here I am reading about it as a kid in the darkness of my bedclothes.  The past is the future and it’s always hovering about us.

There is an ad for V-8.  Who would drink a mixture of tomatoes, celery, carrots, spinach, lettuce, beets, watercress and parsley?  What are watercress and parsley anyway?  And how do you get juice out of celery and carrots?  That’s like getting juice out of a rock.  Looking back I can see that reading Life stimulated my intellect even if I did get some things wrong.

A much better ad was a two-page spread on the history of the tomato “from Columbus to Campbell”. I did not drink tomato juice or like tomato soup, or even eat tomatoes, but I liked this ad, especially the cartoon illustrations.  I learn the tomato is native to the Americas and was thought to be poisonous. My father loved tomatoes right from the garden.  He’d eat them like an apple.  I wonder if he knows that once they were considered poison.

There’s an article about a high school math class in Milwaukee collecting pennies.  They want to know what a million of them looks like.  Everyone collecting them looks like they are having fun.  Every girl is dressed exactly the same.  This is the age of conformity.  And the age when the military commanded respect.  I’m reading about “snowbound servicemen who guard the Arctic approaches to North America.” The Air Force has flown up gifts, Christmas trees and everything for a holiday dinner.  There are lots of other people in the world, I realize, and that’s where some of them are right now. Way up by the north pole. It looks so cold there.

I spend a long time with the article on the paintings by Bruegel.  Normally works of art by a 16th century Dutch painter would not be of much interest to me at that age.  Maybe the flashlight stabbing the darkness under the covers to reveal these subdued paintings featuring people and situations I can identify with have an effect.  

Perhaps it's the style of the layout to feature an entire painting and then pictures of details from that same painting.  First I look at the entire work not seeing all that much.  Then I realize the smaller pictures are from the same large painting. I begin to see where to look. 

In the Adoration of the Magi, at first I am just seeing throngs of people crowded around a shed trying for a glimpse of Mary and the infant Jesus. I don’t notice much else.  But one of the smaller pictures from the same scene shows an elephant.  I look back to the full painting and there, way up at the top, tiny and in the distance, is the elephant.  There is another insert picture of camels.  It takes me a few moments but there they are in the painting, on the right, difficult to discern since the brown of the camels is almost as one with the brown of the background. There is a detail of people hovering outside the shed. Some have gifts; one person has a monkey on his shoulder.  Their faces seem real to me, not angelic or stately, but like someone I might see down to Cleary Square.  In the way the magazine seeks to detail the main painting I am able to understand it more and to better visualize all its varied parts. I wonder if this works on comic book drawings.

Several details are also featured in another painting, Slaying of the Innocents, in which Spanish horsemen carry out an attack on people in a small village.  The original painting is crowded with detail: attackers, the crowds being attacked, confusion and chaos amidst the buildings in the distance. The detail pictures show me what to look for in the larger painting, details I don't see until my attention is led to them. In one particular scene in the lower left of the main painting, a horseman pushes his stallion into the path of a fleeing woman with a baby in her arms.  In the detail you see the look of fear and shock on the woman’s face. An excited dog bounds beside her.  I am shocked too, and fascinated.  I’m used to movies and TV, and yet here is a painting that is also telling a dramatic emotional story.  You just have to know where to look.

In the middle of the magazine was something I had never seen before.  A family Christmas project in the form of a 14-pointed star which you could remove from the magazine and then assemble.  “A star any family with a little patience can put together,” the article stated. I read further. You would need scissors, a single-edged razor blade, cellophane tape and a careful following of the instructions. 

I look at the two-dimensional star on which is printed letters and large plus signs. On the next page more of the star with double tipped arrows indicating where to join the pieces. Is any tetradecagon worth this much trouble I would have thought had I been real smart.  Instead I conclude my family is not one for projects that require all of us to be seated around a table especially with a razor blade nearby.  I turn the page.

That’s when I come upon what turns out to be my favorite part of this Christmas issue and is probably why I remember so well reading this particular issue of Life that many years ago.

It’s the story of The Swiss Family Robinson shipwrecked in the East Indies.  Along with a condensation of the text of the original, it’s illustrated with color drawings which have never been published before.

I settle back into the soft comfort of my pillow and am soon engrossed in this story.  I read every word and stare at every picture.  Why am I so taken by this tale written over a hundred years ago and not by the story of the sailor in Two Years Before the Mast?  Upsetting things happen to the Robinson family as happened to author Richard Dana. Attacks by animals, trying to find food, staying out of the fury of tropical storms. The big difference has to do with the kids, the children of the shipwrecked parents.  One of them, Jack, was about my age.  Notwithstanding their exotic situation, here are people I can identify with, their plight, their resourcefulness, their descriptions of this unique natural world.

The illustrations bring it all to life. One shows Jack discovering the bleached bones of an enormous creature lying up on a narrow beach.  The bones of a whale.  Another displays their tree house, a circular building high up in a most perfectly symmetrical tree.   Definitely fanciful but it dovetailed nicely with how I might imagine similar situations. 

Another aspect of life on the island includes the number of animals present.  Animals for meat and clothing, animals for domestic use, animals for the kids to play with.  Bears, elephants, kangaroos, leopards, monkeys, walrus, parakeets, koalas, horses and more.  I know now this was an impossible array of creatures to be confined and surviving on a tropical island.  Reading it then,  it enhanced the family’s adventures in ways both plausible and appealing. What kid wouldn’t want to ride on the back of an ostrich?

I turn from page to page, read the text, stare at the pictures, reluctantly moving on to the next page knowing I’ll soon run out of pages. The story is over.  Some of the family end up in England; others elect to stay in paradise. I’d like to stay there with them.  I’m a bit sad.  I need something to cheer me up.

Life always had a humorous photo on the last page of every issue. The Miscellany.  So I end my absorbing read of this week’s Life looking at a picture of two Santa Clauses walking together up the stairs of a subway station.  They are volunteers on their way to solicit funds for the poor on the streets of New York.  As the caption says, “a disquieting moment.” I’m not sure I get why it's described as “disquieting”.  Maybe it’s the fact there are two Santa Clauses together.  I thought there was only one.  And Santas should be riding sleighs pulled by reindeer.  And where is the snow?  I guess it is disquieting.  And not the laugh I was looking for either.

I slide the magazine under my bed, snap off the flashlight, and pull the covers up to my chin.  It’s cold out on this winter’s night but I am relaxed and cozy.  I think of the Robinson family and how they might have celebrated Christmas on their new island home. I’ll have to get the book from the library to find out.
  

I lie there a while, my eyes open.  I get used to the dark.  I begin to see the outline of my room.  Christmas is over.  School isn’t back until next week.  There's still New Year’s to celebrate. In a few days, 1954, like the Robinson’s adventure, will come to an end. People will celebrate, wear funny hats, drink a lot, blow into those paper noise makers, kiss people they would not normally kiss, scream Happy New Year at midnight. 

I turn over on my side. I begin to think about that future most people feel is worth celebrating. Next year, the new one, 1955, I’ll turn ten.  The same age my sister was when I was born.  She has a boyfriend.  Maybe she’ll get married.  Will I ever be married?  I’m not sure what being married even is. Who would take care of me, I wonder, if I were married?  I put it out of my head.  I’d rather be shipwrecked with the Swiss Family Robinson. I begin to drift off.  The Robinsons are celebrating a wedding. It’s loud and chaotic, a scene from the 16th century.  Off in the distance, lit by the slender rays of the moon, are the bleached bones…of a young boy.  I start awake!  The flashlight which I had carelessly left on the edge of my mattress has fallen onto the floor.  It doesn’t matter.  It’ll be there on the floor, just where it fell, when I get up in the morning.

Carole

                                                 

Gin

When I was in elementary school in Pittsfield in the 1950s, it was very important to have friends. I could tell if someone was my friend. I would ask, "Will you be my friend?"  If she said, “Yes,” that was it.  I had a friend.  It didn't matter if we had anything in common, played together out of school, or even actually liked each other.  All it took were those few words, “Let’s be friends.”  Since I changed schools frequently, I made new friends every school year.  My simplistic ideas about friendship changed when I entered junior high school.  I began to develop friendships based on common interests, someone you sought out on weekends, a relationship that would last for years not months. The concept of best friend, someone you wanted to be with on a regular basis, someone you actually liked, became meaningful.  For me that first best friend was Carole.

Carole and I met in seventh grade.  Most of the North Junior High classes were grouped by the aptitude tests we took in sixth grade, "smartest" in section 7-1, next smart in 7-2, etc., all the way down to 7-13. However, both Carole and I were in a heterogeneously grouped class, an experiment our parents signed us up for, a special program called the Core Curriculum. I often think if we had been grouped by test scores and grades like the rest of the seventh graders,  I might never have met Carole.

While most of the junior high curriculum was based on homerooms and one hour classes with different teachers for each subject, we had  long time blocks in our homeroom class with the same teacher for English and social studies, another teacher who taught both math and science.  We only left our homeroom for gym, music, and special subjects like home economics if you were a girl or shop if you were a boy. The idea behind the core curriculum was not to experience the typical school subjects as distinct topics, but rather to learn them holistically by working on projects so we would understand better how math, science, history, and writing were interconnected.  The heterogeneous nature of the class could also be interpreted as gathering together people of different skills and abilities. 

For some reason, out of all the other kids in that class, Carole and I connected. From the beginning of the school year, we were fast friends. We tried to get onto the same committees where students would work together on projects in groups. Being with Carole on these committees meant I spent more time with her in school than if we were in a regular program.  If one of us were absent, the other would call that night, find out why and explain what the homework was.   If one of us wanted to go uptown on a Saturday, we would see if the other would be able to come as well. We planned excursions to the skating rink, bowling or to the museum only if the other was also able to go too. But that came later. In the fall of seventh grade, when we were just getting to know each other, we spent as much school time together as we could.

I don't know what Carole saw in me, but I found her daring, a trait I did not have in any measure.  I was drawn to her because she did not display the "be a good girl at all times" stance I followed. Even before I met her parents I noticed Carole had a different relationship with them than I did with my mother and father.  Here’s what I mean. Instead of using the 35 cents her mother gave her every day for hot lunch, Carole would  buy three Creamsicles.  That was her lunch.  Three ice creams.  Every day.  I was fascinated by this willfulness.  While I never felt restricted by how my parents wanted me to behave, I would never have spent money my mother gave me for one purpose, a healthy lunch, for such an indulgence.  Three deserts!  Did I mention Carole did this every day? 

A few weeks into the school year I gave in to Carole’s impulsive way of doing things. One day at lunch while she was eating her Creamsicles, Carole said, "Come to my house with me after school.  You can take the same bus I do.  I'll give you a ticket. I get them free." Shockingly, I did this.  It was so unlike me.  Normally I wouldn’t have changed my regular routine without having first talked to my parents. I wonder now what my poor mother must have thought when I didn't arrive home as usual.  The bus ride to Carole's was much longer than the short walk to my house from the school.

I regretted my decision as soon as we got on the bus and it began to move.  I felt trapped by my impulsive action. At every stop as other kids got off, I became more and more anxious.  I kept wondering where Carole’s stop was and how long it would take us to get there. Naturally I didn't want Carole to know how I was feeling, so I kept up the chat about what we did that day in school all the time hoping she would say, “C’mon. This is my stop.” Three more stops.  Carole and I are still on the bus. I'm on the edge of panic. “Why did I agree to do this. Will we ever get there?” On the outside I am still trying to look cool in front of Carole in spite of what’s going on in my head. I realized I didn't even know where Carole lived.  I just wanted to call my mother to tell her where I was.

The bus keeps going.  All the way along North Street it keeps turning up one side street and down another to drop off kids. We are getting close to Pontoosic Lake. I’m familiar with the lake but not with the area on the other side of the lake. Does Carole live on the other side of the lake?  Are we even still in Pittsfield?  I am developing a stomach ache, my signature worry sign.  I look glumly out the window at every stop.  We’re almost at the lake when Carole grabs her books, stands up and says, "Here we are." The bus leaves us off at the bottom of what turns out to be a long and winding road uphill to Carole's house.

Carole's mother was outright shocked when the two of us walked in.  "This is a friend of mine from school, Ginny," Carole tells her.   I didn't even say hello to her mother. I simply blurted out, "Can I use your phone to call my mother?"  But Carole had a plan.  Before I called, Carole got her mother to agree to let her ask her father to drive me home as soon as he came in from work.  I realized Carole was making sure I didn't get into too much trouble for going along with her. 

She wanted me to be her partner in crime but was also aware of my timidity. I let my mother know where I was, told her I had a ride home around 5 o'clock, and assured her I wouldn't do this again without talking to her first.  Carole and I went upstairs to her room until her father came home. As he drove up, Carole and I came out to meet him. Carole told him he needed to drive me home. He was so easy going. “Ok!” he said immediately turning back to the car.  I couldn't imagine my father being like that.  He rarely said no to anything but his initial reaction was often negative. He’d ask a lot of questions before eventually agreeing. Carole's father didn't ask anything, how far it was or why I was there or even who I was. Carole and I jumped in the back seat of the car driving along the same route as the bus without all the side streets and stops. The end of my first big adventure with Carole.

Carole's parents liked me because they thought I'd be a good role model for their daughter. I cared about doing well in school while Carole appeared not to. However, as these things usually turn out, it was Carole who served as a role model for me.  She was my "daring" friend. Someone who would argue with her parents (Well, with her mother), someone who would sneak a cigarette, someone who would come to school without her homework done.  She gave me a chance to experiment with my wild side.  Well, what passed as wild for me!

Early that fall when I was just getting to know her, I was at Carole's for a Saturday afternoon.  She disappeared for a while, returning to tell me excitedly she had talked her parents into letting me stay for supper.  Then she asked me if I liked succotash.  I must have looked at bit confused. This wasn't a food I was familiar with. While Carole didn't know it at the time, I was a fussy eater.   Carole said it was made from corn and lima beans.  I knew I liked corn so I figured it would be okay.  I did wonder why she asked me about the vegetable that would be served. It left me to wonder what the main food would be. When we went down for supper, I was surprised to see that succotash was the entire dinner.  A big bowl of it!  I found out later Carole's mother was born in the south and succotash was a family tradition for Saturday night supper.

Where are my usual Saturday night hot dogs, baked beans, and brown bread? I'm worried her parents might be the "You need to clean your plate" types. I'm hoping I can get away with just eating around those lima beans until dinner time is over.  I am glad there's a little ham in it. Maybe her parents wouldn't mind that I left the lima beans at the bottom of the bowl. I wanted to please her parents since Carole was so thrilled to have me stay over.

Carole's family was so different from mine.  She had no sisters or brothers.  The house was usually quiet. Not like mine in which it was pretty typical for me and my three siblings to have friends over. There was no TV in her living room.  That was relegated to a sitting room off to the side, a place no one used. Not only was her household different from mine, but her parents were also different from each other.  Carole’s father was lanky, very tall, an engineer at the GE.  He was so tall he used to leave bus money on the first floor ledges on the buildings in downtown Pittsfield.  I can recall being with Carole and her father one day watching him casually reach up to the ledge and pull down a quarter for our bus tickets. At the time I thought this astounding but now I realize he might have been palming the money all along enjoying the reaction he got from me and Carole.

Carole's mother was short and somewhat stocky.  She and Carole had a cantankerous relationship, so different from the one I had with my mother. I chatted with my mother all the time, telling her everything I did in detail. Carole and her mother fought over everything. What she wore, the kinds of shoes she could buy, what activities she would do after school. It was clear to me this wasn’t your typical teenage rebellion. It was their basic relationship. Any decision there was to be made, they were instantly on different sides.

On the other hand, Carole's father was laid back. I never saw him angry, even that day we went out for a walk and didn’t return on time. Carole's mother was furious with us for "disappearing."  She sent him out as soon as he got home from work to find us. He didn't locate us but by the time he got back to the house, we were there.  We were waiting in Carole's room for him. I was wondering what he would say, how loud he would yell at us.  He walked in kind of grinning, "Well, what have you two buzzards been up to today?"  Carole told him we had gone for a walk around the lake and just lost track of time. It was close to the truth. Except that Carole had told me before we left that morning, "I am not going to worry about rushing home today. Let’s just forget about the time and have fun.”

I remember the day I found out from Carole that she was adopted. She told me this, breathlessly, staring at me, waiting for my reaction.  I just said, matter of factly, “So?" It didn't seem like a big deal to me. What difference does that make was my reaction. I think I underestimated what it might have meant to Carole.  Maybe she needed more from me than what she might have interpreted as indifference. We never mentioned it again.

Her father doted on her.  He bought her little pottery animal sculptures. Her bureau top was covered with them, various kinds of horses, panda bears, a couple of kangaroos and several animals whose shapes I didn't recognize.  She told me she could always tell when he had a new one.  He would wink at her as he came in the house so she would know he had found something new for her collection.

Both parents participated in something Carole tried to hide from all her school friends. Square dancing. This was no occasional social activity. Her mother and father participated in serious competitions with regular practices.  Carole's mother would sew their matching outfits, the same material for his shirt and her blouse, usually checked or gingham. His pants matched her full skirt with plenty of western-style decorations: rickrack trim, fringe, lace. The night Carole let me see her parents dressed for square dancing I knew I had won her trust.  Once they left, we made fun of the idea of the matching outfits promising we would never do anything like that when we were adults.

One day Carole called to see if I wanted to share a job with her.  She was teaching a class at the Pittsfield Girls' Club in baton twirling. The class was bigger than they had expected so they asked Carole if she had a friend who could help out.  “I know someone,” Carole said. “Ginny.”

I told Carole I didn't know anything about baton twirling.  In fact I told her I didn't know she did baton twirling.  "I went to dance and baton lessons when I was younger,” she told me. “I gave it up."  I was surprised.  “You could have tried out for a school group, been a cheerleader or on the drill team,” I said in awe.  Carole disgustedly said, "Why would I want to do that?"  This was another example of how different she was from me.  I would have loved to have been in some in-group like cheerleaders or drill team, but I had no skill and didn't dare try out.  Yet here was Carole with this hidden talent (or so I viewed it) and yet she dismissed being part of any school club out of hand. 

Carole brought me back to the question, "Well, will you come with me and do the class or not?" I remind her of what I thought was the conversation stopper. "I don't know how to do baton twirling,” I say emphatically.  Carole answers, "That doesn't matter. They are just little kids. Just repeat what I say.  I'll tell my father to pick you up on the way, about 9:30 Saturday."  Carole made the decision for me.

The next Saturday morning, here I am in a large room at the Girls' Club on East Street.  The room has mirrors along one wall.  It must have been designed as a rehearsal studio for dance. The squeaky voices of about thirty girls five to eight fill the room.  Some are wearing dance outfits with sequins and sparkles, others have shorts and t-shirts.  As Carole takes off her sweater, I note she's wearing  a leotard.  She moves to the front of the room lining up the eager students in six rows facing her.  She has me stand in the middle between the third and fourth rows.

The students have small-scale batons. I am surprised because I didn’t know there were different sizes of batons. But then again since I knew nothing about this activity, why should I be surprised at anything?  Carole has three or four regular sized batons.  One has colored plastic strips hanging from each end.  I am beginning to wonder, given the leotard and the batons, just when had she given this up?  Why did the Girls' Club contact her in the first place? Clearly someone must have recommended Carole as a potential teacher.

Carole taps me on the shoulder handing me a plain baton, no colored plastic strips for me. I am relieved because I can only imagine those plastic strands becoming entangled with my fingers.  Carole gives me instructions. “Repeat everything I say so the kids in the back can hear.  Watch what I do and just copy me.” I have no idea how this is going to work but I stand where Carole wants me.

The class begins.  "Hold the baton between your thumb and middle finger like this." Carole holds her hands up high so everyone can see.  That includes me.  I repeat what Carole says trying to make my hands do to my baton what Carole is doing to hers.  Some of the little kids get it before I do.  "Now move your fingers like this and the baton will roll over them." I repeat this sentence without much confidence.  My baton isn’t rolling the way Carole's is.  The little kids didn't seem to mind.  They were serious about learning baton twirling.  Some must have had other lessons because they began to show each other how it was supposed to work. They all looked up to me as if I were being helpful. Maybe being taller than they were was enough to engender a kind of respect.  As the class progressed, Carole rotated the rows so everyone had a chance to be close to her (and far from me) during the class. For that I was thankful.

We kept this going for the three weeks of the class. No one in authority ever knew I was a fraud. To this day I cannot twirl a baton, but I recall that first step of how to hold it and what you are supposed do to make it roll.

Every spring and fall Carole’s parents would make a regular excursion to Albany for shopping. My parents did all their shopping on North Street in Pittsfield. It would never occur to them to drive an hour just to go to a department store. But Carole’s family did just that.

Carole was so happy when they agreed to let me come along.  I imagine her parents were pleased too, figuring they wouldn't have to deal with Carole complaining she was bored and wanting to go home. Maybe they figured if Carole and I were together, we wouldn't get into trouble. I never did find out what they bought. Clothes for the upcoming season, appliances, furniture?  I had no idea. I didn’t particularly care. Once we arrived at the store, they gave us money for lunch and made a plan to meet back up at a particular time. Then we were on our own.

The first thing we did was make a beeline for the candy counter where we spent most of the lunch money saving what little was left over for the hot nuts wagon.  Sufficiently fortified we’d walk all over the store clutching our paper bags of candy and nuts. One place we spent a lot of time was the kitchen area. Here were salesmen demonstrating knife sharpeners and mixers, showing off the features of vacuum cleaners, and explaining why their mops were better than any others. Each demonstration was like a TV show to us.  We'd wait until there were five or six adults and then join the crowd.  If the salesman waited to  attract a larger group, Carole would become impatient, "Show us how the mop cleans up spilled wine," she’d yell out.  She knew this was part of the demo because we had been there earlier in the day. I loved it.  There was nothing like this on North Street.

We’d make a regular loop to be sure we would catch each demonstration, usually more than once. It was our entertainment. It was especially fun when the vacuum cleaner guy would intentionally dirty a piece of carpet with dog hair or spilled food and then excitedly vacuum it up as if housework was the most wonderful thing in the world. Sometimes a salesman would try to cut a presentation short when there weren't that many people watching. He didn't count on Carole reminding him of a part he had skipped.  "Wait, What about the cleaver? What can you do with that?"  Occasionally a sales person would glare at us, but Carole even had a strategy for that.  She would walk over to stand near an adult as if that person were one of her parents. Even though we must have been irritating, we were never told to leave.

Another must stop was the music area. There were no listening booths as there were at Sammy Vincent's on North Street, but we were already clued in to our favorites, The Everly Brothers, Dion, and Pat Boone.  Yeah, I know, pretty typical. We’d walk though the displays looking at all the 45s, singing the songs to each other.  Sometimes we'd turn the records over to see what the name of the song was on the other side. The so-called B sides.  Rarely did we recognize any of those songs. For us, 45s were one-sided. When we played records at Carole’s, we would play the song we liked over and over and over again. 

We would get into the stories the lyrics were about. They were little plays for us.  We took in their messages as life lessons.  "Wake up Little Susie!" How sad it was this sweet couple might get into trouble when they so innocently fell asleep at the movies. We would be indignant. How like adults to assume teenagers were doing something wrong.  Then we would begin to wonder. Why didn't the usher notice them when they closed the theatre?  Carole and I would brainstorm what we would do in this situation. Not that either of us had a boyfriend that would take us to a movie.

Another favorite was "Silhouettes on the Shade." We empathized with the singer who believed his girlfriend was kissing someone else until he realized he was looking at the wrong window. Eventually our empathy turned to distain as we realized he wasn’t very smart if he didn’t even know where his girlfriend lived.   More understandable was the longing and sadness of "Love Letters in the Sand." We poured our hearts out as we sang along. Before either of us ever had a boyfriend, we had learned what makes love so sad.  It was all in the pop songs. Here was all you needed to know about romance.

Thinking about this music brings me back to the day we stole a 45 at that Albany department store.  I am pretty sure it was the Presley hit, "You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog.”  Even though we had the money to pay for it, Carole said, “Let’s just take it.” We looked around to see if anyone was watching before Carole slipped it into her pocketbook. For Carole it was the challenge, a daring thing to do. As for me, I spent the next hour sure someone was going to stop us, arrest us even. As it turns out, we got away with it.

On the way home, we did our usual candy wrapper game. We knelt on the back seat placing our bags, this day containing our secret stolen record, on the ledge by the back window.  No seat belts in those days. Each time we finished a piece of candy, we let the wrapper fly out the window.  If the car behind us ran over the candy wrapper, he was a bad guy. If he didn't, he was a good guy. We kept count of how many of each all the way home.  Just like seat belts, concerns about littering were still in the future.

When we got back to her house, we eagerly ran up to her room to play our new record.  That’s when Carole noticed it was warped. Apparently the sun beating down on the back car window had partially melted it.  We were not going to hear Hound Dog that day. Carole started laughing. “It’s got warped because we stole it,” she said in a way that made me think she expected this to happen.  Maybe it was just irony, but Carole felt it was some kind of fate to teach us a lesson.

While stealing a record was clearly crossing the line, sneaking a smoke felt less so. I grew up believing when you became an adult, you could smoke, drink and wear makeup. These were some of the things that distinguished an adult from a kid. It wasn't a matter of health, those concerns weren't talked about in my house. TV and magazines were full of ads for cigarettes.  Both my parents and older brother smoked. It was just a matter of time before I did too. So sneaking a smoke was more like testing at what age it would be acceptable to smoke in public. By the time we were in tenth grade, Carole and I would indulge about once a month when I came to visit. 

I have no idea where Carole got the two or three cigarettes she always had hidden behind a loose brick in her cellar. Her parents didn’t smoke so there were no cigarettes in the house. Carole had a system.  Her parents used the cellar as cold storage for apples and pears.  Carole would announce we were going down there to have an apple, or a pear.  That’s when she pulled out the brick revealing the individual cigarettes. She'd whisper, "When my parents go out tonight, we'll have these." 

Once they left the house, we'd take the cigarettes outside so there wouldn't be any smell in the house. I don't recall smoking being particularly pleasant or unpleasant. It just became a habit. It was something Carole and I did when I came to visit overnight. For me it felt like I had a secret. Other kids may have thought of me as quiet, unassuming, not daring, but they didn't know I had this secret identity. I was a smoker!  It made me feel like I was a grown-up. When I was in twelfth grade, I started buying cigarettes and smoking openly.  I gave it up in college when I started hanging out with people, like Bill, who didn't smoke.

In the summer between eighth and ninth grade, Carole's family invited me to go with her for a week's visit to an aunt and uncle who lived in New Salem.  I think her parents were attending a square dance retreat or championship someplace else in New England and this visit was to serve two purposes,  some family time for Carole and her relatives but also a chance for her parents to pursue their interest without worrying about Carole.

The ride from Pittsfield to New Salem was a long one. We drove from Pittsfield along Route 9 to Northampton where we stopped for lunch at a burger place. Then we drove across the Connecticut River along 9  through Amherst before we picked up Route 202. 

North New Salem where Carole's relatives lived was in a rural area. Their house was the last of a small group of perhaps eight houses along a stretch of road that extended through woods. The entire area was a forest that surrounded the Quabbin Reservoir built in the 1930s to provide water for Boston. This was the water Bill drank everyday growing up in Hyde Park. 

There was a small store on Route 202 just where you turned to get to Carole’s aunt and uncle’s house. It was about a mile walk but we didn’t care. We’d walk there to get sodas and candy.  My favorites were candy sticks of various flavors and colors. Most days we'd have cereal with her aunt and uncle for breakfast before spending the day outside.  We'd walk to the store and then back along the road past her aunt and uncle’s house before going into the woods. It was always our goal to walk to the reservoir’s edge. Because we could see the water, we thought we could walk to it but it was always out of reach. Another few steps, we said. We never made it. Later we found out the reservoir was actually several miles away. Carole's uncle laughed at us when we told him we expected to be able to walk to it.

Carole spent a week in New Salem every summer for many years. Considering there wasn’t much to do there, she was happy to have my company. Her aunt and uncle were nice enough, but all we did was stay at their house. They seemed old to us, probably all of 50. They spent most of their day on a big front porch with a Readers' Digest in hand.  I liked that because it meant they had a stockpile of the magazine we could read.   

We never looked at any of the featured stories or the condensed books, only scanned through the pages to find the jokes or the funny anecdotes. We'd read these aloud to each other.  I particularly liked a regular feature titled something like "The Most Unbelievable True Story.”  They were usually tear jerkers.  A man’s car breaks down on a deserted road. A stranger pulls up to offer help.  As they chat they find out they are twins who had been separated at birth.  “A brother he never knew he had” would scream the end line.  These sentimental twists of life were always written in the first person, presented as true, and, as the title indicated, hard to believe.  I wondered how often these coincidences occurred and how the editors had enough of these stories to print month after month. How many separated-at-birth stories are there anyway?   

Another way Carole’s aunt and uncle entertained us was to include us in their card games. I remember long games of 500 rummy out on that porch on warm afternoons. While we played rummy with her aunt and uncle, when Carole and I played cards together the game was poker. Carole and I shared a large room at the front of the house with big windows that opened out to the porch.  The bed was enormous, high off the floor. We had to use a step stool to get up on it.   During our card games, we sat cross-legged on the giant bed. Even though we played for bobby pins, we took winning seriously.  If I won a handful of Carole’s pins, I’d keep them for myself. I can recall sitting up on that bed trying to bluff my way to a win with a two pair no picture card hand.   My father who was good at poker had taught me the rules and some strategy, but like most poker rookies I could never follow his advice, "Never draw to a pair."  I did it all the time and as a consequence, Carole had more bobby pins than I did at the end of the week.

One afternoon Carole’s aunt and uncle had an announcement.  They told us we were going to a backyard party at a house across the street. In all the times Carole and I had been walking up and down that street, we had never seen another person. Yet, when we walked over to the backyard of the party house, there must have been 30 to 40 people there. Not just adults. Kids too. On lawn chairs. Sitting at picnic tables.  Who were all these people?  Where had they been hiding? 

From my perspective as an adult, I would love to be able to chat with all these people to find out about their lives in this rural place.  However, as teenagers, Carole and I adopted the kind of smug, superior attitude that city folk displayed to their country cousins. (After all, we were from Pittsfield!) We kept to ourselves responding to any attempted conversation by an adult with monosyllables. I did take part in a few games of badminton, something my family played frequently in our own backyard. And we didn’t ignore the picnic fare that had been set out. But that was the extent of connecting with the neighbors.  After that afternoon, we never saw anyone playing outside again. It reminded me of Brigadoon.

Woods were not just for walks. One time Carole reached into her pocket pulling out two cigarettes.  "I brought these for us."   Being basically city kids, we lit up tossing the match carelessly aside only to have it start a small fire in the tall grass.  First we laughed, then started to stomp on it to put it out.  This tactic didn’t work.  The fire continued to spread. It didn't take long for us to realize we were out of our element with no idea how to contain the fire or put it out.  We became concerned when a fairly large area was burning  Even Carole was  shaken up at the trouble we might be in.  Running back to the house, we told her uncle that as we were walking we smelled smoke and noticed "what seemed to be a grass fire."   He called his neighbor who, like Carole’s uncle, was a volunteer fireman.  They must have known what they were doing because soon the fire was out. 

We waited anxiously all day expecting to have to confess we were responsible for the blaze.  Later that day, we overheard her uncle telling her aunt the fire was man-made.  "Looks like some kids just causing trouble.  But we got it under control. No big issue."  Carole and I glanced at each other with relief.  No one ever suspected that we were the kids causing trouble.

Once eighth grade was over Carole and I did not interact in school. Carole refused to consider the college prep course.  It would have pleased her mother, so naturally she wouldn't do it.  I was in all college prep classes, so we no longer saw each other in school.  Even though I was developing new friends among my classmates, Carole and I continued to see each other outside of school.

For a short time we did what many sixteen and seventeen year-old drivers did in downtown Pittsfield. Drive the North Street loop.  Car after car, filled with teenagers, would drive around Park Square, down North Street, past all the stores, make a left on Bradford, another left on Center, another left on tiny Union Street, then a final right turn back onto North.  Cruise south on North Street this time along the England Brothers' side of the street until you hit Park Square. Repeat. Over and over again. Thursday nights, Pittsfield teens would drive their cars in this loop, pausing to wave at each other as they passed, even yelling something from one car to another. 

I thought this was what all the cool kids did and was excited the two times Carole and I participated. Yup, two times!  Our loop driving would have continued except for one thing. Carole’s parents were planning to buy a new car. Carole did not like one of the cars they were considering. "If you buy that one, I'll never drive it.” Well, they did. And she didn't.  That was the way she was.  You might say she was her own worst enemy.  Her stubbornness pulled us out of the Thursday night North Street loop, but maybe you do have to admire her integrity.

After graduation, Carole continued to live at home working at a local bank. I went to the University of Massachusetts to become a math teacher. I had decided at an early age I wanted to be a teacher focusing on math after enjoying ninth grade algebra.

Writing to Carole during my first year at college, I shared tales of life in a dorm, my roommate, and some of the other non-academic parts of college life. I knew she wouldn't care about my classes or assignments, but she’d be curious about daily life, meals at the dining halls, on campus movies and football games.

When I was home on a break, I’d tell her about my experiences at places we first drove by on our way to New Salem. One was a restaurant between Northampton and Amherst called the Aqua Vitae. When I told Carole it was an Italian place with pizza and pasta dishes, she got angry.  "My parents always wanted to stop there instead of the burger place, but I wouldn't let them,” she told me.  “I knew Aqua meant water and that Vitae meant life. I thought it was a seafood place. I hate fish. Now you’re telling me it had pizza and spaghetti. I wish I had known that."  Thinking back over this story I’m reminded of the expression, "A little learning is a dangerous thing."  Carole knew enough Latin to recognize the words, but didn't pay attention to the more subtle things like declension.  Aqua Vitae can be translated as The Water of Life but it was a reference to the red wine served with every meal. The name wasn't identifying it as a seafood restaurant, rather as a place to enjoy a glass of red wine with your Italian meal.

Even though our lives were diverging, we did keep in touch over my freshman year in college.  My summer job between freshman and sophomore year was as an operator at the telephone company in Pittsfield. I suppose since we both had jobs during the summer months, the similarities in our daily lives rose to the foreground and the differences between our paths, my plan to become a math teacher, hers to continue the life she had now, faded to the background. In any case, we spent time together that summer but with a new wrinkle.

Carole had a steady boyfriend, Bob, who also worked at the same bank. Just before I came home for summer vacation, Carole wrote to me about him.  She was clearly quite happy having him as a boyfriend. One dilemma.  Bob's best friend, also named Bob, didn't have a girlfriend. Carole was tired of having dates with the two Bobs but her boyfriend didn't want to leave his buddy alone every time he went out with Carole. She concluded her letter with a request.  Could I join them as a companion for Bob so that Carole and her Bob would have some time together?

So a couple of times a week, the four of us would get together. Usually we'd go to a drive-in snack bar to eat, play miniature golf, or go bowling.  Not so bad even though I didn’t particularly like my Bob.  I thought of this as more of a social thing than anything else. Besides summer was only a couple of months long so I continued the arrangement for Carole’s sake  As the weeks went by, I realized there were limits even to my generosity toward Carole’s feelings. Some of what they liked to do just wasn’t a good fit for me.

For instance, even though I wasn't particularly interested in cars or racing, when the idea first came up of going to a car track in Lebanon, New York, I thought it might be an interesting event. I remember my parents describing the horse racing at Saratoga.  A lot of pomp, women in summer dresses, and a parade of the horses before each race. While they were not that interested in horses or the racing, for my mother and father it was a fun activity.  My parents would make small bets to insure they’d watch the race with a stake in the outcome. They talked about the fun of observing other people predicting how they’d react with a win or a loss. Anticipating something similar but with cars instead of horses, I agreed to go with them to the car track.  When we got there, I discovered it wasn't anything like I had expected. There was no pomp. As for the crowds, mostly guys in t-shirts.

It was a demolition derby. A car race with a twist.  The drivers intentionally tried to bang into each other, to do enough damage to knock the other cars out of commission. The track was shaped like a figure eight.  As cars crossed that area where the four paths intersected, they would position themselves to hit each other, trying to disable other cars without damaging their own car too much. The last car left running was the winner. 

Though noisy and ridiculous to me, I kept that to myself as Carole and the two Bobs were cheering excitedly. They even knew the names of some of the drivers.  I suppose it took some skill to smash into a car at just the right angle to impair its ability to continue racing while protecting the integrity of your own vehicle. Still, the appeal of this whole spectacle was lost on me. I found myself wondering, “What am I doing here?  I could be home in my quiet back yard reading a book.”  I went only that one time.  Every other time it came up I lied about my work schedule suggesting the three of them go without me. I could have been more honest telling them I just didn't enjoy the noise, the damage and the worry that someone might get hurt. I made excuses thinking there was no reason for me to spoil their fun. Besides, summer was almost over. I'd be back at college soon.

Then there was that night at the drive-in movie late in the summer.  I was in the front seat with my third wheel Bob and Carole was in the back seat with her boyfriend Bob.  After I while we realized they weren't watching the movie any more. They were making out. Since both of them lived with their parents this was probably the only venue for sneaking in a little sex. They got noisier. I got more uncomfortable. I looked over at Bob. He just shrugged his shoulders, kept staring at the screen pretending he couldn't hear them. I noticed he averted his eyes from the back seat so he wouldn't really see what was going on there.  

As the noises from the back seat continued, I began to wonder if my Bob was expecting something from me. He was not my boyfriend. We hadn’t even held hands which was fine with me. We struggled through the rest of that night trying to act as if we were both totally engaged in the movie. Eventually Bob and Carole started talking to us like nothing had happened. Right then, I determined to limit my time as part of this foursome  I'd be back in school soon. This would be in the past.  If Carole and Bob wanted to be together, they would just have to leave the other Bob home alone.

Perhaps Bob began to pick up on my hesitation. He knew I wanted to learn how to drive. Once he called me suggesting I practice driving with his car.  Even though I didn’t particularly want to go out with him, I gave in to the temptation.  But just that one time.  After that I was even more convinced he and I had nothing in common.

A few days later, Bob called to invite me to what he called a special dinner. Since I was going back to UMass  the next week, I figured it was a farewell meal.  I felt it would be a nice gesture to say yes.  When he picked me up that evening, I was surprised that Carole and her Bob were not in the car. Hadn’t they been invited, I thought?   "Oh no,” Bob said, "this is just for us."  Warning bells should have sounded. The surprises continued. We didn't go upstreet to any restaurants or out of town to any snack bars.  Instead he pulled into the driveway of the two-story house where he lived with his family.  I had been there only once before.  We had stopped in one night after dropping off Bob and Carole. At that visit I met his parents and younger sisters.  We watched a little TV including The Miss America Pageant. Then he took me home.

This time I noticed the kitchen table was not set for a family dinner.  Instead, in a small room off the side of the kitchen, there was a table set for two. Fancy, with candles. "Come on in,” Bob said.  I began to wonder what this evening was going to bring. As I walked into the room, I got a glimpse of  Bob's sisters who waved at me and giggled.  They were in the adjoining living room eating dinner in front of the TV. 

"Now don't you girls bother Bob and Ginny,” said his mother.  "They're having a special dinner."  I sat down where Bob indicated. After a few minutes, his mother served us dinner and then disappeared back into the kitchen. Instead of enjoying the food, I became more and more uncomfortable but I kept reminding myself, “I will go home after this is over. Next week I’ll be back at UMass. All of this will be behind me.”

Bob started talking about how amazing I was. “I’ve never met a girl like you. You're so agreeable. So easy to be with.  You didn't get mad even when I was looking at those other girls on the Miss America Pageant.” There was a pause. I just looked at him. I had nothing to say in response. Then he astonished me. “I think we should get married.” I just stared at him incredulously. I never realized until that moment he had thought of me as a girlfriend.  My first thought was we haven't even kissed.

   

I had to say something. ”You know I am going back to college next week. I have three more years before I am a teacher."  Now it was his turn to be surprised.  "Yes, but I figured once we were engaged, you'd stay here. Maybe continue working at the phone company as we plan the wedding." 

I repeated, "But I am going back to college next week."  He repeated, "I thought you would stay in Pittsfield instead."  We kept tossing the same thoughts back and forth.  Me: expressing surprise that he thought I’d give up college. Him: shocked that I didn't think being married was more important.

We sat there for a while locked tightly in this awkward situation. I continued to be surprised that he would think I would give up becoming a teacher. He continued to be surprised that a girl would rather go to college than get married.   Almost at the same moment, we both became aware of our surroundings. Sitting in his house with his mother and sisters in the next room. I became embarrassed for him. For me.  How was he going to explain this to his mother?  His sisters? How was this standoff going to end? It suddenly dawned upon me I needed him to drive me home.  As much as I may have wanted to, I couldn't just get up and leave.

As soon as we got in the car, he started back in trying to convince me that it would be good for me to stay in Pittsfield, to get married. It was all about the planning, the logistics. “You can continue working at the phone company and me at the bank so we can save enough money for a place to live once we’re married. I can keep taking you out for driving lessons. We’ll be able to go out without Carole and Bob.” I looked at him. At no time did he talk about having feelings for me. It was remarkable to me how dispassionate he was.

Now that we were alone, without his family in earshot, I gave up the "I want to be a teacher" angle and pointed out what I thought was an indicator of the lack of depth in our relationship. No physical contact. No intimacy. “We have never even kissed,” I told him.

“Yes,” he said.  "I am proud of that. You are proper."  In my mind, I am screaming. I am not proper! I am just not interested! There is no impulse to fight against anything physical. I don’t want to be physical with you.  I knew all this was too mean to say, so I didn't say anything.  I just sat there in silence as he drove. 

  

A new thought occurred to me.  "Did Carole know what you were planning?" 

“Yes” 

"Didn't she tell you I'd be going back to college next week?”

 “She told me I should ask you and see what happens." 

So now I was angry, angrier than I had ever been. Why didn't she warn me? What kind of a person lets a friend walk into such a situation unaware?

We finally made it back to my house.  As I left the car, Bob said quietly, "I'll call you tomorrow."   I looked at him, giving up trying to be kind, just needing to be extricated from this.  My anger at Carole fueled my emotions.  That energy gave me the strength to be honest.  “No, Bob, do not call. I do not want to talk about this any more.  I do not want to talk to you. We are not together. We are not a couple. We never have been." 

I felt so mean saying these things. Even as I write this now from a distance of years, I feel sad about that summer.  I never wanted to hurt him.  I was completely wrapped up in my own interpretation of our relationship and just assumed he shared my sensibilities.

Once home I told my mother what had happened and how badly I felt.  "I have to call Carole. I am so mad at her."  I got Carole on the phone. Without any preliminaries I stated,  "You knew what Bob was going to ask me.  Why didn't you tell me?"  Her answer stunned me.  "I didn't want to spoil his surprise." Now my anger was mixed with incredulity.  "Did you actually think I would go along with this? I am going back to college next week."  I was like a broken record, but to me that sentence explained it all.

"I wasn't sure what you would do,” was her surprising reply.  My confusion at this response blunted some of the anger.  After all these years together, I’m realizing, she doesn't know me at all.  “Well,” I replied somewhat lamely, “you should have told me. It was embarrassing to be there with his family. I didn't know what to say.  I feel bad for him.  I'm upset to be in this position."  I didn’t wait to hear what she said back. I just couldn’t talk anymore.  I hung up the phone.

I didn't call her the night before I returned to college although I considered it.  Nor did I try to get in touch with her the next time I was home.  We never talked again. We never saw each other again. Our relationship just ended.  All the moments we shared together growing up as teenagers weren't enough to bridge the differences between us as we became young adults.