Patterns

I've been writing a little about my grade school years. In the 1990s I researched and wrote about my family at the time of my birth (and well before.) I have revised those chapters many times, especially using the Internet and information shared by relatives. Then my early childhood, using what artifacts and information survived from those years. (Prime example here.) This summer, the early grades, using books and photos and stuff I've saved or accumulated, plus what I could find online. And especially guided by my own memories--of general impressions, focused around specific memories.

I'd like to note two aspects of this endeavor here: the educational, and the coincidental. And how each led to the other. There are especially three instances I'd like to record. I don't know if they are significant to anyone else, but their very occurrence seems striking to me.

I started the first grade at Sacred Heart School in 1952. Among my clearest specific memories of that year are of fantasies about Superman, and a crush I had on a second grade girl named Judy. Researching the 1950s context, including the specific circumstances in Greensburg, PA, was interesting--how the local Catholic schools and churches responded to the beginning of the baby boom and expansion of housing beyond the town limits, for example. But as the first generation to start out with television, that medium's early history also pertained. As it turns out, my memory of seeing the opening episode of the George Reeves Superman (the origin), was of seeing the actual Pittsburgh premiere of that series. It started being broadcast that school year. (That research in turn led me to Superman's own previous and subsequent history, as reflected here.)

But that's not one of the three examples. The first pertains to second grade, when the most important event was my First Communion. First grade introduced me to the indoctrination (and I recall specific stories the nun told, or at least I recalled and recorded them several decades ago.) Dealing with second grade got me online to research catechisms. (There are basically three types. A somewhat simplified version for second grade. The one I re-acquired is evidently used in fifth grade, before Confirmation.) I also have a photograph of myself in my First Communion outfit, taken that day with my grandfather. But when I came to write about it, I couldn't remember when in the school year it would be. It seemed like it would be spring. The Internet gave me dates for some in recent years. So I initially set mine around Easter. But then I noticed a piece of paper on the floor. It had evidently fallen out of something--an old book, scrapbook, photo album. But on it was the precise date of MY First Communion.

The two other instances are from third grade. Another element of research involved the books we used, particular the school readers. I learned online that the Scott, Foresman readers that almost everyone used had specific Catholic editions, and they involved the family of John and Jean. As pupils we didn't own our readers--the school did, and they were passed down over the years. But we did have workbooks, and I have one that belonged to my youngest sister Debbie, and it was a John and Jean book. But I remember the Dick and Jane books. A little more research and yes, there was an earlier Catholic edition of the Dick and Jane series.

At used bookstores or yard sales I did acquire a few of those old readers, but probably not the ones I used. There were new editions of the Cathedral readers published between 1954 and 1956, so for the first few grades I was probably using books published in the 1940s. Still, at least some if not most of the content was the same, because I vaguely remember a few specific stories, and more vividly a few specific illustrations in one of these books (More Friends and Neighbors.) With a little effort, the Internet yielded up the secrets of the grade each reader would be used. Unfortunately, the readers I have are for the second and the fourth grades. Yet I had a specific memory that I thought happened in third grade.

Though I don't have a third grade reader, I have my younger sister Kathy's Think-and-Do Book for her third grade. I thought I would use it to illustrate how Catholic doctrine was integrated into our learning to read, but then I came upon a page of questions that I was suddenly certain was about the story I remembered as significant if not life-changing, and moreover the exercise was applied to exactly that feature: the sensory images. It was the story about Whizzer the mouse, and I remember that when we read it out loud in turn that I was amazed and excited by the language, especially the kinetic verbs. The characters didn't just walk or run like Dick and Jane--they zoomed, scurried, sprang, scrambled, scampered, bounced. It was a revelation about what reading (and writing) could do. So there it was--confirmation of that memory, in a workbook that happened to survive, about a story that evidently made it into the later edition my sister used.

This would relate to the main event of this third grade chapter, which is the writing of my first play, performed by my third grade class. But the major sequence leading up to this was about watching a Saturday morning of television, then playing with neighbor friends that afternoon and re-creating stories from those programs. So at last the reason for the illustrations up there. Thanks to the Internet, I found the actual TV test pattern I stared at, so impatient for programs to begin on Saturday morning--for WDTV, a station that didn't exist much longer, though it was transformed into the still-running KDKA. I knew I wanted to memorialize the space adventure shows I loved, and various researches revealed that all of them were on at the same time only in one year: 1954.

However, the play I wrote had a Christmas theme (it was about a Christmas it didn't snow, called A Summer Christmas, inspired by...well, that's another story) so it would have been written and performed that December. So this Saturday morning--with the test pattern, the early cartoons, the snack food we ate--like those graham crackers above--would have to be earlier. But it couldn't be too close to Halloween or Thanksgiving. So I checked the 1954 calendar, and chose October 23. Then I discovered that if I looked hard enough on the Internet, I could find episode lists with original air dates for several of those old shows. Since I was going to describe this experience of watching these shows, I decided to use specific real episodes.

I had to improvise on a few. Rocky Jones, Space Ranger was syndicated and shown on different stations at different times, so I used an episode I've got on a budget DVD, which plausibly could have been shown then. Tom Corbett, Space Cadet was actually switching from one network to another, so new programs weren't broadcast in October. So I decided that the station that was going to carry it might go back and air old episodes (on kinescope, in those days), so I was able to use one I had on an old VHS tape, which was one of the first in that long-running series. But my favorite of the Saturday morning space adventures had been Space Patrol. And of all of these, and the entire Saturday morning experience, I had one specific memory.

It concerned Space Patrol. I wrote about all those shows elsewhere, and specifically recorded this memory: I have one strong memory in connection with this show. It was one Saturday morning when my mother heard the announcer or someone on the show refer to it being set in the thirtieth century. (I have the vague recollection it was another time travel plot.) She asked me if I knew what century it is now. I wasn't sure. She told me the twentieth, and then said that she used to listen to Buck Rodgers on the radio--his space adventures were in the 25th century. I remember this partly because I hadn't imagined my mother listening to space adventures, but also because I began to sense the extent of time, and of the future.
So here is the plot for the Space Patrol that aired on October 23, 1954:

#192 "MYSTERY OF THE STOLEN ROCKET SHIP"
The top-secret Terra 5, experimental model for a fleet of sensational new space ships ticketed for Space Patrol service, falls into the hands of interplanetary gangsters. Using Carol as a hostage, ruthless Gart Stanger forces Cadet Happy to take him aboard the Terra 5 and pilot him back through space and time to the planet Earth in the year 1954. At his destination Stanger intends to construct duplicates of the Terra 5 with which he will equip his henchmen when he returns to the 30th Century. Unfortunately for both he and Happy, the pair arrive on Earth to find themselves imminent targets for an atomic bomb test.

I have no doubt, more than a half century later, that this was the episode that prompted that exchange with my mother that I remember, on the exact date I had chosen for my fictional enactment. (The atomic bomb test is a bonus--it's surprising how many of these shows dealt with atom bombs and radiation.) I don't know what if anything such a coincidence means, or the significance of those earlier two examples of what might also be described as serendipity. Especially since this entire enterprise may be meaningless to anyone but me. But for me, it's some kind of affirmation, and connection. To what, I couldn't precisely say.

Mankind's Greatest Invention

"Surely mankind's greatest invention is the sentence." So begins John Banville's essay on Robert C. Richardson's books on Emerson, in what has to be my favorite quote of recent years, perhaps of all time.

When you're a writer, no matter how famous or obscure, whether you're one of the handful anointed by income or crowned by royalties to bear the title of writer, or you're a wretch like me, insultingly underpaid for squeezing into dubious forms, sooner or later, what gives you the buzz and the meaning, is a sentence you see and hear that you've written.

Oh sure, some get off on paragraphs, and there's the lucky few that get to play with chapters or scenes, and whole books, plays, sagas. But even they share the secret (and often secretive) gleam of a shining sentence, appearing under their fingers.

I wrote a review of a book about a writer who made very good sentences: Jane Austen. And in it I wrote a pretty nifty sentence, at least I like it. And for once I will violate the code and call your attention to it. It is mere cleverness maybe, but it is musical and funny, with a touch of cultural wit at the center. Or maybe it's just cute, I don't care. These days I must take my pleasure where I can. And pointing out a really elegant sentence is forbidden. That's up to readers to discover, and if they don't, well, everybody loses.

So in connection with Jane Austen's journey from obscurity in life to Jane-mania in the 21st century, I wrote this: She has the fame of the single name: absent Tarzan, she is our only Jane.

Good. Now I can put the clipping away with all the other forgotten sentences, and make some more.

Purpose




For ten years, between 1984 and 1994, Jeremy Brett played Sherlock Holmes in a series of 41 stories for Granada TV in the UK. His performances earned him the reputation as the definitive screen Holmes for his time, perhaps for all time. Any starring role in a long-running television series tends to absorb the life of the actor, as well as define these actors for their careers, and beyond. Often as well, these roles change the personalities of the actors, sometimes thoroughly and permanently. Jeremy Brett exemplifies all of these possibilities, except perhaps for one. The role of Sherlock Holmes did not change his subsequent career, for he had none. A year after he completed the Holmes series, Jeremy Brett was dead.

In the Granada episodes, now available in restored condition on DVD, Brett created a more intense and mercurial Holmes, his sudden stillness exploding in quick motion and flamboyant gestures. Brett was a close student of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories and felt his interpretation was accurate, but it also reflected his own personality, as such long-running roles often do. But in his case, it's difficult to find the line between character and actor.

Biographical sketches as well as DVD commentaries and interviews emphasize how deeply Brett delved into the stories and the character, and how relentless were his efforts to use the TV medium and make the best possible films to serve them. It became his obsession.

In contrast to other Holmes incarnations on film which eventually invented new stories for the Holmes character (including the classic Basil Rathbone movies, and certainly the recent Robert Downey feature), the Granada series based its stories closely and exclusively on the original Conan Doyle stories. His first series of stories ended with Holmes apparent death, though popular demand would cause Conan Doyle to revive the character and write many more stories about him. Brett had just finished filming that death of Holmes episode when his own wife died of cancer.

Soon after, due to popular demand, the second Granada series was commissioned, and Brett's identification with Holmes grew even stronger. The qualities that he had already perceived as similar in Holmes and himself became overwhelming--especially that contrast of periods of fierce energy with periods of lassitude-- until Brett was forced to seek treatment for manic depression. (The symptoms apparently became pronounced during the "Return of Sherlock Holmes" series, and treatment had begun just before he started the "Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" final series.)

But Brett kept up his concentration and his exhausting schedule, playing Holmes on screen and on stage. Yet the lithium he took for his illness began to change him physically, as became apparent on screen. The later episodes chronicle these physical changes--such as weight gain, especially in his face, gaunt and spare at first, then puffier, wan and haunting.

Though overwork and his overwrought obsession as well as effects of lithium and the manic depression itself probably contributed to physical deterioration, in the end it was his enlarged heart and scarred heart valves, basically from a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, that led to his death in his early 60s.

I first saw Brett's portrayal of Holmes when the A&E cable network--back when it actually was an Arts and Entertainment network--ran the Granada series late at night (around the time that it also ran the UK Lovejoy series.) I was lost in the wilderness of western PA then, and the Holmes series was an oasis. Brett's portrayal was riveting, and inspiring.

Now I'm somewhat obsessed with watching episodes on DVD, particularly the second, Return of Sherlock Holmes series. The clarity of the DVD--much better than the prints of cable--show Brett as even more of a revelation, as well as showcasing the visual splendor of the series. In this age of CSI and NCIS forensics, the detection aspect is of little interest--except for Holmes insistence that his method is imagination. No--the interest is Holmes, and Brett.

So I ponder the question of whether Brett's obsession was wholly tragic, or perhaps a little to be envied. In various ways, he gave his life to being Sherlock Holmes for millions of people, including me. He'd been a fairly successful stage, TV and film actor for years, but the chance to star in an iconic TV series comes to few. He made the most of it. He made the best of it, at least as his work. He undoubtedly sacrificed something, including probably years of his life.

On the other hand, in pouring himself into Holmes, he also made the best of his own personality, and eventually of his illness. We can speculate that identifying so completely with Holmes exaggerated these tendencies into a true illness, or the opposite, that he turned the illness into something incredibly creative.

In the end, it seems to me that his tragedy is not so bad as more ordinary tragedies, of lives unfulfilled. An excellent, iconic series of 41 televised stories--of intriguing and entertaining but hardly profound popular art-- may not be the greatest accomplishment, but it is a great one. Is it worth a life? I think so--that is: I think I'd take that bargain.

Postscript: I wanted to add a note about an absurd feature of the Brett/ Holmes DVDs--namely their English subtitles. Here we have the most faithful adaptations of stories by one of the most popular English authors, and the English subtitles for the DVDs seem to have been done by someone for whom English is a distant second language. They are so sloppy and inaccurate that they seem to have been done with careless haste. An example from a DVD of one of the Granada movies (I've seen two--both disappointments: they were padded one hour episodes), Dr. Watson refers to a book of poems by Tennyson. The English subtitle says "Henison," which requires not only mishearing (surely the point of English subtitles to spoken English is to compensate for exactly that) but ignorance--even more, carelessness. Unforgivable.

The Proposal Driven Life

I wasted what probably amounted to a decade or more of my writing life on the futile efforts involved in creating book proposals. An agent I knew, a kind and intelligent man, was a particular advocate of writing elaborate proposals, which he gently insisted be written to his own formula, derived from his experience, and detailed in a couple of books he'd written. In an earlier era when I in fact got a book commissioned, proposals were a necessary but somehow pro forma part of the process. But things had changed. Publishers were more tense, bureaucratic (especially as subsidiaries of larger corporations), and I was out of the old loop--if such still existed--of periodical editors in touch with book editors and agents. It was me confronted with the Borg. So I was persuaded that these detailed proposals were necessary.

But I had a lot of problems with them. First, they weren't proposals. They were supposed to be detailed descriptions of a book--the one you hadn't yet researched or written. Such proposals worked if you had the funding to do research--travel, interviews, etc.--paid for by a newspaper or foundation or the university where you teach. I had none of those sources of support, nor any other sources.

After struggling with proposals for the kind of book I had published (The Malling of America) which required travel and interviews so I could write about what and who I discovered, I learned how to fashion book ideas more dependent on the kind of research I could do more cheaply--library and media research, personal experience, etc. It took awhile but I reoriented myself and got excited about a number of ideas. But I was still left with the need to do a great deal of the work just to do the proposal that I would normally do for the book itself. It was solely my investment and my risk. Perhaps that's as it should be, but clearly I was at a disadvantage, compared to well-funded journalists and academics (not to mention celebrities, of course.)

But these proposals, I was told, required even more. They required that I tell the publisher who would buy this book and why. Backed up by statistics, comparisons to other books, etc. A marketing study of sorts. In fact, this was much more important than the content or the idea. As an author who spoke about my book all over North America, and who got letters about it, I knew that my "market" was entirely self-selected, and my readers had little predictable in common. But such realities didn't matter.

I struggled with these requirements, did the best I could without becoming a total hypocrite. And I failed. Over and over. I not only couldn't please editors, I barely ever got to them. Agents were usually the impenetrable barrier. And then I woke up, and realized that I had hundreds of pages of book proposals, and no books.

I also realized that I had no real evidence that books were actually commissioned on the basis of such proposals. I began to doubt that they were. It seemed more likely that editors selected projects the same ways they always had--because the author was a friend, a friend of a friend, or famous, or hot, or someone told them the author was about to become hot, or as the spur of the moment result of any number of whims. I can't even tell you how much evidence I'd gathered that the whole business was built on gossip and whim.

So I stopped writing proposals. I ended my proposal-driven life. But then very recently I fell off the wagon. I noticed a book series from a good publisher that seemed perfect for several subjects I had already been writing about. I found one of the editors by email, and he invited me to submit a proposal. So once again I thought carefully for weeks about how to frame the two topics I had in mind, and spent weeks crafting brief summaries, this time with the benefit of adding Internet links to my writings on these subjects. I stressed in both emails that I was gauging their interest in these topics, and would create more detailed proposals if they were interested. I was hoping for a dialogue--at least that much, if only in recognition of what I'd already invested in the effort.

I emailed these summaries and got an email back in less than 12 hours saying they'd been considered and rejected. The only reason given was that the series is primarily historical, and my approach didn't seem historical. The reason is specious. I not only referred to the history, but I linked to the substantial history I'd already written.

I don't know the real reasons for the rejection, if indeed there were any other than whim. I do suspect that the topics were of interest but I wasn't, for some reason. So if you happen to see a new book on Star Trek or shopping malls in the American Icons series published by Yale University Press, you will know that these ideas were stolen from me.

In any case, I won't get fooled again. As deluded and self-destructive as devoting so much of my time to the proposal-driven life has been, the way agents and editors operate is probably also self-destructive and deluded, or at least obsolete. Book publishing is changing fast and those folks are getting left behind. I'm not sure the changes are any better for me than the old system, but I've learned again the truth of what one of my old writing teachers said in a throwaway line to a relatively inattentive group of high-test competitors in a small college writing workshop. "Great writers all had one thing in common," William Eastlake said softly. "They all wrote their books."

"Those lines on your palm they can be read
for a hidden part of your life that only
those links can say--nobody's voice
can find so tiny a message as comes
across your hand. Forbidden to complain,
you have tried to be like somebody else,
and only this fine record you examine
sometimes like this can remember where
you were going before that long
silent evasion that your life became."
William Stafford

My mother was born in Italy, and her family and the community of their friends who came over together were all a major part of my young life. Plus, when I was growing up in the 50s, there were prominent Italians in Hollywood, in music and sports: the era of Sinatra and DiMaggio. There were even songs on the hit parade in the Italian language.

But it's been downhill since then. For years now, Italian Americans have been defined by the pop culture version of the Mafia. A collection of Italian language songs was advertised on TV as "Mob Hits." I found it all so insulting and demeaning that I don't care how "well done" the Sopranos was, I was never going to watch it. And I'm sure not going to watch "Jersey Shore," yet another stereotype that has nothing to do with my experience.

What I did watch however was a wonderful film story, made in Italy, about a group of characters who were adolescents or young adults in the 60s, and following them into the 21st century. The English title is The Best of Youth. It was made for television, but was also released in theatres, usually shown in two parts, each 3 hours long. (Available from netflix, etc.) But it is worth the time. It's one of the best written, best acted, most beautifully photographed stories I've ever seen. It was very special to me because I understood the common expressions in Italian--I think the dialect was close to the one I heard mostly as a child, but for much of my life. Even the body language was familiar--I've never felt so attuned to the people in a film before, not even an American film. Everyone should see this, but especially Italian Americans who feel like they have to be fugitives from the prevailing insulting stereotypes.

“Chaplin’s great virtue, aside from his comedic gifts, was his emotional readiness. Those who don’t respond to it will be quick to deny that emotion, or to call him saccharine—and indeed, Chaplin did have a tendency to pull out all the emotional stops and risk bathos. But it always felt real. His was not false sentiment but rather a naked display of raw sentiment. And that’s more than forgivable. It’s who he was. It’s what he had to risk to make his art, and the transcendent emotion of his best work shows that he was right to trust his heart.”
Mick LaSalle

San Francisco Chronicle

"The contrast between the wisdom of our literature and the folly of our rulers and voters is a melancholy proof that people get nothing out of books except what they bring to them, and that even when the books explode their prejudices and rebuke their villainies they will read their own dispositions into the books in spite of the authors, and hang up their instruments of torture and their bullet-riddled banners in the very temples of Mercy and Peace."

G.B. Shaw

"The riddle of the age has for each a private solution."
--Emerson

"Fate"

"He had to choose. But it was not a choice
Between excluding things. It was not a choice
Between, but of. He chose to include the things
That in each other are included, the whole,
The complicate, the amassing harmony."
--Wallace Stevens
Notes Towards A Supreme Fiction

Woody Guthrie, bard of the Great Depression, who wrote so many great 30s tunes like "Hard Travelin'" and sang others like "The Hobo's Lullaby." That's one way I learned about the Great Depression, and another way quite recently was through letters to my father, as I write about in the post below.

Talking Great Depression Blues

I posted this on my Stage Matters blog, in connection with a Dell'Arte School original production here on the North Coast about the Great Depression. But since it's about family and history, and what I learned on my summer vacation, it seems to me it also belongs here...

I saw the Dell'Arte original show about the Great Depression, called The Body Remembers, shortly after returning from a visit back home to western Pennsylvania. While I was there, my sisters and I sorted through several boxes of photos and documents, some unopened since each of my parents died (my mother in 1974, my father in 1990.) There were some photos from the 1940s and 30s, and also three letters my father received at his CCC Camp in 1940--one from a hometown buddy who was in another CCC camp, and two from his mother--my paternal grandmother, who died several years before I was born.

My father rarely talked about his past, but whenever there was an economic recession or other economic problem in the news, I could pretty much count on him saying that what they ought to do is revive the CCCs. I've since read about the CCC and other New Deal programs, but those letters provided something more specific: the role they played in my father's life, part of which led to me.

The Civil Conservation Corps was a program that employed young men (starting at 17 or 18) in conservation projects all over America. The projects were developed by the Interior Department, but the Corps was run by the Army. Young men lived in Army-style camps, were provided with food, clothing and shelter, and paid a small wage, most of which was automatically sent back to their families. Between 1934 and 1943, some 3 million men cumulatively worked in more than 4,000 camps.

From the letters we learned that my father was in a camp in Blain, Pennsylvania, a few hundred miles from his home in United, PA. Some guys got sent thousands of miles away, often to the West, but that may have mostly been earlier in the program. His friend was in a camp even closer to home, in the Laurel Highlands, not far from where one of my sisters now lives. There were apparently about 150 guys at my father's camp (though 300 was the norm), and they were building Big Spring state park. The camp was very isolated, probably as far into the woods as he'd ever been (or ever would be again). But besides a military schedule and discipline, they had activities--sports teams that competed with other camps, for example. His friend was closer to a town (Somerset) and so seemed to have a lively social life. (Here's another good source on the CCCs in this region.)

My father's hometown was built by the United Coal and Coke Company, and his father and grandfathers were (or had been) coal miners. Mines were closing in the 30s, and there were big and violent strikes in the 20s and 30s, that got the miners essentially nothing. There were few jobs, no money and no future there.

The plight of the miners in the area was so severe that the FDR administration built one of a few experimental communities there. They built new houses (with a novelty in the area: indoor plumping) and started cooperative farms and eventually a small garment factory. It came to be called "Norvelt," the last syllables of Eleanor Roosevelt's name, after she came to visit it. Locals apparently just called it the homestead.

The homestead is mentioned in my grandmother's letters, though they didn't get to live there. They were still in United. By 1940 Norvelt was changing, and people who lived there were being asked to buy their houses rather than rent them. But I also learned about Norvelt on this trip because there was an article in the local newspaper while I was there: this summer was Norvelt's 75th anniversary. And as it happens, one of my sisters now works for a small business that's housed in the very building that used to be the Norvelt coop garment factory.

At issue in the letters in 1940 was what my father was going to do next. Apparently his hitch was up, and there was anxiety about losing the money he was bringing in. The family was saving to buy their house. The letters left the matter unresolved, but they fit with something else I saw many years before. It was a mimeographed, stapled newspaper, and inside it was my father's name, as editor-in-chief. Probably my mother dug it out and gave it to me, when I started my string of editors jobs in junior high. My father never mentioned it. I've examined it since, though at the moment I've lost track of it again.

It was the publication of the "self-governing community" called Armor City, a National Youth Administration work experience project in South Charleston, West Virginia. It was another federal project under the umbrella of the Works Project Administration. It seemed to be very much like the CCCs, except this was for slightly older young men, and it's purpose was to train them for jobs in industry, not the woods. Eventually it was training them for jobs in national defense, and judging from other information about South Charleston at the time, that's what my father was probably doing. There was a big naval munitions plant in South Charleston, which FDR visited.

My father was at Armor City in 1941 and apparently still there in 1943, when he was called home for his mother's last illness. (He was found physically unfit for the draft. As children we were told it was because of color-blindness, but it may actually have been because of a deformation in his back, perhaps the result of a fall in infancy.) Soon after, he got a good paying job in industry, in a plant in Youngwood, PA that made military instruments. That's also where he met the young woman who would become his wife and my mother.

I grew up with some tales from the Depression, on both sides of the family, as well as from the lives of parents and grandparents of school friends, and total strangers. I got more interested in it all in the 60s, thanks in part to Bob Dylan being so interested in Woody Guthrie. And of course, Arlo. I've heard stories since--Steve Allen told me a few--and read many more. It's important in terms of what individuals and families went through, though I would stop short of calling those who lived through it and are still alive "Depression survivors," as some of the Dell'Arte publicity did. It sounds too much like "Holocaust survivors," which is a different order of experience.

It also tends to distance us from it. Books like the Stud Terkel volume that inspired this production are one way to get close to it, or even recollections in memoirs--I was especially interested in Malcolm Cowley's, with his Pittsburgh connections. But of course the best of all is family memories, and letters like these.

Little Coincidence

Within the past few days:

I was about to go back to some writing about H.G. Wells and The Time Machine for about the hundredth time. I turned on the TV, which was on the Turner Movie Channel. What was on? The Time Machine.

I was towards the end of reading The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson, which includes stories about characters who appear in his Mars trilogy of novels (which I finished reading early last month.) I was reading a chapter called "Sax Moments" about a character named Sax, while listening to music on my new (and first) Mp3 player. A couple of pages later was "The Soundtrack" which named music that the author evidently listened to while writing the trilogy, and music he associated with various characters. For example, the music for the character Sax is Beethoven's late string quartets.

Which is what I'd been listening to as I read the Sax chapter.

In the "day time" I am what others expect, seem to want and need me to be.

At night, I am what I need to be.

Who you are includes who you've been, and that includes who you've imagined being.




Woke up thinking--I've been here over 12 years, and I've not attended a single wedding or funeral.

I went to bed thinking--the complacency etc. of my parents and their generation drove me nuts when I was young. But the future disasters I saw for my lifetime are mostly still in the future. They'll shape the lives of the next generation or the generation after that.

[These are from old, undated scraps. They could be months old, or years.]

From Synedcoche, New York, an unusual film I just saw on video, described in the post below.

Synecdoche, Synecdoche

I just saw a video of the film Synedoche, New York, written and directed by Charles Kaufman (who wrote Being John Malkovich, which I didn't much like, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I did kind of like.) This is an unusual film in form and content, which covers in dreamlike fashion some forty years in the life of Caden Cotard, a theater director in Schenectady with a messy life, who wins a MacArthur Grant and goes to New York City to create a massive theatre work as his ultimate expression.

There are layers, time jumps, reality and fantasy intermixed, visual and word puns (like the title), probable references to various mental disorders and possible elements of Jungian psychology, in this movie about life, purpose, love and especially death. The story begins with Cotard at about 40, in more or less the present, and leaves him at about 90 in an apocalyptic future. Throughout the often brutal, tragic and absurd events, Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) keeps getting new and often ridiculous ideas about his increasingly sprawling play, which involves hundreds of actors in residence for decades, but never a finished play for an audience. His dying words are something like, "I think I know how to do this play. I have an idea."

The DVD includes a discussion among a group of young film bloggers, all of whom have astute comments. They talked about the personal impact of this film, how it required something from them, and how they feel this is missing from movies. It reminded me of movies and their impact on me in the 1970s (though some of the movies I saw then and was affected by so strongly were made years before.) They also all found the movie initially depressing.

I can see why, but even though I am older than Kaufman, his view of the point of view of someone my age or older seems right. Though the presence of death, the brevity of life, the telescoping of time, the ongoing stubborn and probably futile search for a summary expression, are not just implied but hammered on, I felt the ending was fairly positive. Cotard finds an illusory but fulfilling final moment of love, and his last thought is a further idea on his never-ended project. I can see why younger people find this depressing. But I don't exactly, and it turns out that Kaufman (in an interview on the DVD) agrees with me: the all-encompassing work is never finished. Trying to create it is just life.

Perhaps it also is a product of age that I found so much of the movie, while painful, was also funny. Maybe this movie for the young is a tragedy. For the old, a comedy.

Of course everyone wants to be famous. Everyone wants a story. And if you aren't famous by 30 or 40 you'll never have a story. At best you'll be an anecdote in somebody else's story--a character in the subplot. Or an illustrative example--the old man who couldn't get health care, the young woman who got pregnant and dropped out. Some politician will use it in a speech perhaps. But you don't have a story. Everyone wants a story.

Yes--that hasn't changed. Only the famous--only the gods get stories.

Except here it's just one story. Every famous person gets the same one: the rise, the fall, the resurrection. Fame, obscurity, rediscovery. The end.

My school year work is mostly done, in a final spring paroxym of Music and Theatre department shows. So it's time to clean up the mess, go through the notebooks, file and throw away notes etc. I've made along the way.

But this time, instead of just tossing the notes into folders for projects that seldom seem to escape those folders, I'm going to post some of them, as whim indicates.

Some, that have a verse (or versible) form, I'll shuttle over to the verse site that's even more unknown and connected than this virtual stealth blog. For the adventurous, it's here.

Some were intended as expressions of characters, as possible expressions of possible characters, in various projects, but I doubt if I'll even try to indicate that here. I'll just throw them out into cyberspace right here, as opposed to burying them in folders until I either cull them from their project, use or misuse them in one draft or another (should I get around to that), or until they get tossed out by me or whoever cleans up after my time.

I may or may not title them but I'll invent a new classification, i.e. tag, for them, as below: notes to myself.

My maternal grandfather was a tailor. It was a craft with a long history-- in some ways, as old as civilization. My grandfather worked in a tailor shop in Pittsburgh and then in Greensburg, near the train station and the town's major hotels. But for most of his life after his children were born, he had his own tailor shop on Depot Street in Youngwood, an even smaller railroad town. I visited him there many times as a child (though I usually wound up going to the barber shop next door to read comic books,) but I'm not sure of all that he did. I know he made men's suits to order, and he did alterations. He had a sewing machine and a big steam presser I remember.

Being a tailor was an honorable craft in the Italian village he came from, and in America. He had to read and write well, keep account books and do billing, and he had to interact with customers who weren't all Italian immigrants and their children. Though there was talk about closing the shop as he got older, it was still a going concern when he died in 1966, at age 73.

But independent tailor shops were getting to be few and far between by 1966. A close friend of his who came with him to America, a little younger and also a tailor, spent his last working years altering men's ready-made suits in a department store at the mall. By now, tailoring as my grandfather knew it is a phantom occupation. Nobody where I grew up becomes a tailor now. [This sequence continues below...]

When I was growing up in the 1950s, my father sold and repaired sewing machines for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. That logo was on the side of the gray panel truck he drove. For about a century, women used sewing machines at home to make and alter clothes for themselves and their families. Presumably that meant people made a living selling and repairing sewing machines for at least a century.

My father worked out of the Singer Store in the prime retail area of South Main Street in our town of Greensburg, PA. He became an assistant manager there, then manager for smaller stores in the area before becoming the Greensburg manager. He was the first manager at the new store when it relocated to Greengate Mall. But the store didn't last long. By the mid 60s, home sewing machine sales were falling. All the Singer stores soon closed. They had also begun selling vacuum cleaners in the 50s, and later my father got into that business, becoming the factory rep for Hoover, until he retired.

His father had been a coal miner until he contracted Black Lung and retired on disability. He had two younger brothers: one a truck driver, the other worked in a factory in the 50s and 60s. A man's job was supposed to support his family, and thanks to union contracts, many factory jobs did. My father's income was usually near the margin. He was paid a salary but he depended on commissions on the sewing machines and so on he sold. We had a new house in a new neighborhood, but supporting that and three kids was a struggle. Before I was in high school my mother had to get a job. She eventually worked her way up to be a hospital administrator, and judging from the people who worked for her, a good one.

So selling and repairing sewing machines was apparently not a great living. But at least it wasn't coal mining. Now it's a job that almost nobody has anymore. Nobody drives a panel truck with that big red S on the side. My father's occupation disappeared before he was 50. Everything he had learned about sewing machines was pretty useless.

Tools of my trade over the years...

So I've worked at the writer's trade. Writing has been what I've done for income, in one form or another, as well as what I've mostly done, for one medium or another. Apart from my book, I've published in major newspapers and national magazines, and even some international ones. My writing for clients included some big projects. My resume looks pretty impressive.

People have been writing professionally for a very long time. There were patrons--kings, churches, etc.--and there were little writing jobs ( as a girl or a young woman, my maternal grandmother got paid to read and write letters for other girls in her village who weren't literate.) Getting paid through publications has been a primary source of writer income for a few centuries.

Now they say this job is also becoming obsolete. Although newspaper reporters often will insist they are not really "writers," they are just about the only people who write who have steady jobs, with union benefits. But now newspapers are dying one by one, and companies with multiple newspapers in many places are teetering.

The magazine business is also endangered, and so is book publication. Within publications, particular fields are fading or gone. There are few theatre critics left, and partly as a reflection of the declining book business, book reviewing and book reviews are disappearing.

Except for a very very few, writing in my lifetime has not been all that lucrative. Freelance rates were arguably seldom if ever at the level that they were in the 1920s, say, inflation adjusted. (In fact, sometimes they were identical, inflation not adjusted.) But the current crunch began contracting my income sources several years ago. My magazine markets having dried up, I began freelancing for newspapers. In one year, I had pieces in five separate sections of the San Francisco Chronicle. The next year most of the paper stopped assigning freelance pieces completely, and the others bought fewer. The Book Review was the last, when my editor was replaced, and then that editor was also replaced within a month or so. Now the future of the section and of the newspaper itself is in doubt.

I wrote my first piece in years for the New York Times, which the editor loved and we began discussing future assignments, when the order came down at that paper to stop all freelance assignments in the arts section.

Some of the changes for me are to be expected at my age--I'm not the demographic for subjects I used to write about, and frankly they don't interest me anymore. But I saw this article recently by a young writer, about even younger writers. It's called "Is writing for the rich?" [continued below]

More tools of my trade, among the oldest, and for me they will likely be the last to go...

Here's his main point: "But on the whole, the writing game seems likely to become even more a province of the upper middle class and flat-out wealthy than it is already. The offspring of the affluent, branded college degrees in hand, can afford to give it a go. But anyone hailing from more hardscrabble environs may find it too difficult to get traction before succumbing to the dismal economics of it all."

Now it's kind of been that way in the arts, including dramatic and literary writing, since at least the 1980s, when I researched an article on the subject. But he's talking about the world of the Internet, where self-publishing through blogs means that lots of people are writing for free, and just about everybody is reading for free, too. Very, very few people are getting paid to write on the Internet, and almost nobody is making a living at it.

To some extent, there's still the phenomenon of one door closing and another opens (though it's at least as likely that, rather than more noble or useful, the place it leads to is more degrading.) But things can only contract so far before they functionally disappear, like tailor shops. Without getting into the complexities of all this, the general tenor of things seems to be saying to me that my trade, like that of my father and grandfather, is becoming obsolete.

It's not the activities themselves that are obsolete or without value. Sewing, tailoring, making clothes are crafts requiring skill and they make valuable products. But for a long time they were paying occupations for many people, and now they aren't. Apart from sweatshops, they are more like hobbies (and as such may end up generating income. The current knitting craze has generated web sites, online companies, podcasts, books and book reviews, etc.)

The activity of writing continues, even if for small (very small) audiences or just self-expression, which might define it as a kind of hobby. When I started blogging, it was partly out of frustration with the barriers to publication, let alone payment. I spent way too much time writing book proposals instead of writing books, as well as plays never produced, and songs that voices never shared. So I chose to write for free, just to make something that was public.

But I'm also still writing for income, and will probably always need to. The truth is I never made what could reasonably be called a living at it, but I never felt it was obsolete, or that I was. At this point I wonder if it even matters. The income is largely to finance more writing, that doesn't generate income, or at least not yet.

Back when my grandfather had a tailor shop and my father worked for Singer Company, how I was going to make a living by writing was a mystery to my family, as it was to me. I didn't have a clue. That was a class thing partly, and apparently it remains partly a class thing.

In those "writing career" terms, I've made some wrong-headed mistakes and bad guesses. I've followed my intuitions to some successes, too, when others thought I was nuts. At times I've let self-indulgence and self-pity, ego and romantic delusions misguide me. Still, that's no more than half the equation. The rest is outside me--the context, the circumstances, the times, the places, the forces, the people, who decided what I was good enough to be given to do, or allowed to do. And what its value then was.

While in large measure other people and larger forces have defined my life, I keep trying not to let them define me. Which is another way of saying that as long as I am writing--in notebooks, on legal pads, on typewriters and computers and in the sands of time, scribble, scribble to the deluded end--I am.

Danny Boy

It's a big St. Patrick's Day in Pittsburgh. Because in Washington, President Obama named Dan Rooney to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. Rooney, owner of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, is not only known as a statesman of the NFL, "Mr. Rooney was in Washington last night to be honored by the American Ireland Fund, the group he has nurtured as a force for peace in Northern Ireland. He was at the White House today, St. Patrick's Day, for a reception for Brian Cowen, the Irish Taoiseach, or prime minister." So even though he enthusiastically supported Barack Obama in the PA primary and the general election, it's not a purely political appointment. The Rooney family (that's him with his revered father, Art Rooney, who started the Steelers) is probably the foremost family in Pittsburgh, so this is I'm sure another occasion for pride in the city. Dan Rooney, like his father, is known as honorable, fair, considerate, and in his case, thoughtful. He is responsible for the NFL's "Rooney Rule" which mandates interviewing minority candidates for open coaching positions. The Rooneys didn't usually get involved in partisan politics, but Dan Rooney saw something in Barack Obama, and apparently that was mutual. "Dan Rooney is an unwavering supporter of Irish peace, culture, and education," President Obama said on Tuesday. Congratulations.

This also comes as the University of Pittsburgh sends its men's basketball team to the NCAA tournament as a Number 1 seed, and its women's basketball team as a Number 4 seed. Congrats to them as well, and this concludes the sports portion of our program for probably quite a while.

First, before I purge my junk email file, I want to record the subject line of the latest from one of the many kind strangers in foreign countries who want to give me money: Your pleasant response is required. My pleasant response to a day of rain and a forecast for more is, hey, I really enjoyed the sunny Saturday at Trinidad--as did everyone I saw and met on the beach and on the head--but it was noticeably dry there and on the drive up, so, come on with the rain, I'm happy again.

As for the Super Bowl--here's a little key to my personality: I've actually gone back to the tape three times to watch the last 2 minutes, just to make sure that every time the Steelers still win. So now I think I'm convinced, and I will re-watch the whole game now, to further erase the anxiety trauma. This photo (of Big Ben) by the way is one of many good ones at this site. Thanks to fellow Steelers fan and Ferndale Rep impressario Ginger Gene for sending me the link.

Happy birthday, James Joyce. Other people remember it's Groundhog Day. Every year I remember February 2 is James Joyce's birthday. It was an important day to him. He arranged to have several of his books published on this day. He was an important writer for me, beginning with the day in high school when a renegade nun slipped me a forbidden copy of A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man. His language, his legend became touchstones for me, unfortunately in some respects, throughout college and well into my 20s. Richard Ellman's biography of Joyce went everywhere I did. I still have a hefty Joyce collection. So for years I celebrated his birthday, often with some stout and an Irish whiskey (or two.) Once when I was doing so at a bar during my exile in Greensburg--I was also reading a paperback copy of one of his books--an astonished young man I didn't know expressed his astonishment. He couldn't believe there was actually someone else there who knew it was Joyce's birthday, or cared. He had to be halfway in shock. That's JJ's gift to all of us, I guess, even now that more people celebrate Bloomsday than have ever read Ulysses. Painting by Joel Issacson.

Again, it wasn't pretty. The Steelers couldn't punch it in close to the goal line. Both the offense and defense ran hot and cold. And it sure wasn't easy, but it was true to their pattern: one amazing defensive play--in this case, an interception and the longest run for a touchdown in Super Bowl history--and a last minute drive engineered by Big Ben for a touchdown. Santonio Holmes got the MVP and he made stellar catches, but the Most Valuable Player was Big Ben. Steelers 27-23. (Odd, but I noted last night when I checked the long list of ESPN predictors, the chosen winner most often had 27 points.) So the Pittsburgh Steelers are world champions for the sixth time, more than any other team. Owner Dan Rooney thanked President Obama (who predicted the Steelers would win in a close one) and Steeler Nation. Big Ben thanked his offensive line.

The Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Baltimore Ravens, so on February 1 they will play the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl. It was a typical Steelers win: dominant defense and an offense that did almost everything that usually loses the game: blown touchdowns, stupid and costly penalties, a fumble, short yardage failure etc. Which only meant that they weren't leading 31-0 at halftime. The offense scored early and the defense won it with a turnover and run for a TD--a typical Steelers victory. The Ravens and their quarterback were completely confused and outmatched on offense, and their defense underperformed for the first half. It wasn't as close as the score, but of course with the Steelers it had to be too close for comfort.

Arizona is the surprise team, playing winning football at the moment but with not much precedent earlier. It's impossible to know how they will match up. They could get blown out. They could surprise the hell out of the Steelers and their fans. I'm guessing the national media is looking at this one way, but in Pittsburgh the talk is about the Arizona coaches, two of whom coached for the Steelers in their last Super Bowl victory in 2005, and both of whom--the head coach and defensive line coach--were considered for head coach in Pittsburgh and passed over. How personal is this, and how well do they know the Steelers--and what good will either do?

Apart from physical advantages, the Steelers also have a lot of players who've been to the Super Bowl, as has their current coach, Mike Tomlin. The Ravens inexperience in a playoff game was evident--could the SB rattle Arizona? Their quarterback has been in two, but the rest of the team is short on experience.

The Steelers had a great game plan against the Ravens, but they'd played them twice already this year. Coaching may be a wash so execution will be crucial, and even if Arizona pulls some tricks, if the Steelers stay disciplined in pass protection and run blocking on offense, and in pass rush and pass defense, they could befuddle any plans.

Fortunately, the game isn't this Sunday. I'm still groggy from the Inauguration--and from getting email from President Obama.

By beating San Diego Sunday, the Steelers bring home another playoff game to Pittsburgh. What a year! The league's media darlings--the Patriots, the Colts, the current champion Giants, the Cowboys, Fauvre and the Jets, Miami, even San Diego was a sweetheart for awhile--they're all gone, out of it, finito. All that's left are four scrappy never say die teams who often win ugly and sometimes lose ugly: the Philadelphia Eagles, Arizona Cardinals, and the two toughest: the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, facing each other for the third time this season on Sunday, for the AFC championship and the right to go to the Super Bowl. It's going to be an insane week in the 'burgh.
P.S. If you think this is just a personal obsession, consider that the highest rated TV show of the week was the Steelers-Chargers game. It more than doubled the ratings of the second place show on Sunday: the Golden Globes.

Playoffs

Steeler Update 1/11: Steelers 35-24 over San Diego. The Steelers rediscovered the running game, with a finally healthy Willie Parker, and pass protection. Since the Baltimore Ravens won their game, the conference championship between the Steelers and Ravens will be in Pittsburgh, which means another $20 million or so for the city, and a lot of partying.

The Steelers ended their season by beating all but one in a string of tough opponents, and earned a division championship. They did it with tenacious defense, opportunistic offense and by their skin of their teeth.

The lack of respect they get from the media and the league continued. When Big Ben engineered a late 4th quarter 95 yard drive to win against Dallas--the kind of drive that made John Elway's reputation--all the sports media wanted to talk about was the rumor of dissension in the Dallas locker room. Yet the Steelers were almost silently installed as favorites against the Titans, a team that had been undefeated most of the season.

That game was their significant lapse in their stretch run. After hammering the hapless Browns in the final game, they seem to be still as healthy as they've been all year (assuming Ben's "mild concussion" was just that) and the elements are still there for victory, but so are the vulnerabilities. And as sports analyst and former Steelers running back Merle Hoge says, the playoffs are when vulnerabilities are exploited.

The surprise--maybe the shock-- of the Wild Card round so far was the Indianapolis Colts, widely predicted to win it all, losing to San Diego. Depending on the outcome of the Ravens-Dolphins game Sunday, the Steelers could play their first playoff game against San Diego. The Colts being out of it is a significant advantage for the long-term chances of the Steelers, but San Diego is not necessarily good news, even though the Steelers began their 5 game winning streak by defeating them in an ugly game, 11-10. The Chargers are a better team right now than they were then, and they can exploit the problems with the Steelers offense: pass protection breaking down, and Big Ben taking a lot of chances. Still, Big Ben threw for a lot of yards and the running game was solid in a badly officiated first meeting (hence the score.)

Still, the danger for the Steelers tomorrow is a Ravens victory. Although they defeated the Ravens twice this season, a third time might be pushing it. I feel better about their chances against Miami, if the Dolphins win tomorrow.

The Steelers had a good year, even if they didn't often look that good. They didn't lose to a bad team; all four of their losses were to playoff teams. Now one of them (the Colts) is gone. If the Ravens lose tomorrow, and the Steelers get by either San Diego or Miami in the next round, I like their chances against the Titans (assuming they advance), even though they defeated the Steelers pretty soundly a couple of weeks ago.

So what I'm saying is, that although some fans were high enough a few weeks ago to ask if this team is as good as the 70s dynasty teams, I'm not so irrationally exuberant. Especially because of the inconsistent offense, I don't necessarily believe their playoff games are going to be fun to watch. But with this team, you never know. The Super Bowl is not inconceivable.

Update: The Baltimore Ravens won their AFC Wild Card game today, and Philadelphia won the NFC. Philly plays the New York Giants next week, a game they will lose. The Ravens play the Tennessee Titans, and the winner of that game will play the winner of the San Diego vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers game Sunday. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Though Pittsburgh sports media is a lot more optimistic about beating San Diego.

"Christmas 1951," a narrative complete in posts and images, below.

Christmas 1951: An Introduction

What follows (in a series of posts punctuated by images) is the latest version of a fictional account, "Christmas 1951."

It is set in 1951 mostly because of the age of the protagonist. It is his last Christmas before starting first grade. But it turns out to be a year for certain other innocences and connections with the past to end, or begin ending. The trolley he rides on will no longer be running by the next Christmas, for instance. Even the city buses will be gone by decade's end.

In 1951, television was becoming part of life. Among the first childhood heroes were Howdy Doody, Captain Video and the cowboy Hopalong Cassidy. William Boyd played Hopalong in movie serials, but hung on to the TV rights. He added scenes and made new episodes, and became the first TV western hero. He also became the first to have lots of products available with his name and image. But even so, there were few if any television commercials for children's toys in 1951 (though lots of premiums you could get by sending in boxtops or the inner seal of an Ovaltine jar). That would change in a big way in a couple of years. There were no chain toy stores, either, and there wouldn't be for quite awhile.

But television was beginning to provide children with narratives, with ways of organizing the life we observed and experienced, and ways to act and think about our actions, in addition to what we learned from parents and family, and later the widening circles of peers and neighborhood, school, church and town, etc. That's beginning to show up in this story.

In western Pennsylvania where this story takes place, it was a time when extended families and ethnic identities were still strong, particularly among Italians. The family is basically my own, and the families of my family. Flora Severini, my mother, was born in Italy, but her younger sister and brother were born in the U.S. My father's family origins are more obscure, but his father and grandfather (first generation American) had been coal miners, and that side of our family had weaker ties to ethnic traditions, though they kept the Christmas ritual of sharing the kind of bread used as the host in the Catholic Mass, which is probably Polish. No one seems to know where that side of the family came from, but Poland had been partioned several times and borders in eastern Europe were fluid, so it's all pretty mysterious still. My father's mother (who died years before I was born) was not Polish, with roots in Slovakia I believe.
The fictitious events and streams of consciousness are informed by memories (mostly but not wholly my own) and by knowledge acquired later, especially about food, games and other rituals of the Christmas season. It's part of a larger narrative, which at this point is seen through the eyes of the young protagonist. That's reflected in the vocabulary as much as anything.  But this version is detailed and not really edited as part of a larger piece, to preserve as much as possible of times and places gone by, and the people in them.

Christmas 1951

Flora had some last minute shopping to do before going to Arnwood to help Mum with Christmas Eve cooking, so Walt came home for a few minutes in the afternoon to pick them up. He was working at the store on Main Street today. She told Billy to call and remind him, and watched as Billy asked the operator for 409, which was the Singer store number. He knew that number and their home number (5329-M). She noticed again that when he put the heavy black phone receiver to his left ear he immediately switched it to his right. She was going to have to ask Dr. Spino about this.

Doris who answered the phone told Billy that Walt was already on his way. Billy went to the picture window to watch for the Singer truck. Sometimes he could spot it at the bottom of the hill, at the corner where they got the green city bus to go into town, or the orange bus that took them to Arnwood.

The window was ringed with the new Christmas bubble lights that Walt bought and that Billy and Kathy would sit and watch. Kathy would soon tire of it, since she was not quite two years old, but Billy could sit there watching for a long time. The lights came on when Walt plugged them in, but it took awhile for them to warm up so that the bubbles started moving, and that’s what the kids waited for. There were green, red, yellow, blue and orange lights, and they began bubbling at different times, so the kids had a good time watching them.

She was getting Kathy into a dress when Billy shouted that daddy was home. Soon she heard the front door open and Walt came into the bedroom. She told him they would be just a few minutes. He took off his coat but didn’t hang it in the closet. He draped it over the back of the couch in the living room. He was wearing his good brown suit today because he was working the floor at the store, and he had on a brown tie only because Flora had prevented him from wearing a blue one. His color blindness was only a problem with dark shades, she noticed. He seemed to be in a good mood, but as soon as he got home he always started feeling tired.

Flora succeeded in getting Kathy’s dress, white socks and white shoes on her before she started fussing, but getting her arms into her winter coat was a struggle. Kathy had worn braces on her legs for a very short time, but when she started walking it was clear that she didn’t need them and her legs were healthy and strong. So already this was a happy Christmas.

Flora got Billy into his coat and hat and gloves, and Walt carried Kathy down to the truck. They didn’t have real steps yet, just piles of big rocks that were flat but ridged, and some moved a little when stepped on. Walt and his brothers and one of the neighbors had built the walk last summer, using rocks the bulldozer had scooped along the hill from the street to just beside the house. Someday this would be their driveway, though now it was just dirt on a hard rocky surface. There was a little snow on the ground, but Walt had brushed most of it off the walk with an old broom this morning, and no more had fallen since.

Flora and Billy went around to the passenger side of the gray panel truck with the red Singer insignia on the side. Billy climbed in first, crawling over the seat and down between the two front seats into the back of the truck, where he sprawled on some old blankets. Then Flora stepped up and sat down, while Walt came around and then handed Kathy to her.

The road down the hill passed bunches of trees and a scattering of houses, then the gas station and the Hudson-Nash showroom, until they came to the corner of Hamilton and West Newton Street, where the many houses were close together and the city of Greenbriar really began. The first few blocks of West Newton Street past the Hamilton corner, still lined with trees but now just a stately single column of them, was a mix of some big stone houses and other smaller wood frame ones, all of them built many years before the war.

Then West Newton Street merged with Pittsburgh Street at the top of the hill that led deeply down and then sharply up like a roller coaster dip, cresting at Main Street, before another steep drop on the other side. There were fewer trees as they started down the hill but they were very tall and pretty. Rich looking, Flora thought. She noticed a little snow on the large rolling lawns in front of the big stone buildings, formerly the mansions of the town’s rich coal barons before they left town altogether, now converted to funeral parlors and the headquarters of an insurance company. There wasn’t much snow, but enough to ensure this would be a white Christmas.

When Billy saw the golden court house dome at the top of the hill he knelt on the hump between the built-in seats of the truck to look at the gray stone courthouse itself, the largest building he had seen so far in his five and a half years.

Just before Main Street, Walt pulled a little ways into an alley to let them out. Once she and Kathy were down, Billy climbed out and watched the truck continue down the alley.

“Where’s daddy going?” he asked.

“Just back to the Singer store,” Flora answered. “We’ll see him there in a little while. We’re going to Royers now. Don’t you want to see the flying bottle?”

For a moment he didn’t know what she meant but the idea urged him forward with her. Kathy wanted down from her arms, and so their progress was slowed by Kathy’s walk. Now Billy was impatient and skipped ahead until he reached the entrance, and waited for them to go in together.

Royers was the smallest, smartest and most expensive of the Main Street department stores, so Flora only bought there what she couldn’t find elsewhere. She’d seen a cashmere scarf she liked on a previous visit and had decided to buy it for her brother Carl. She guided her children to the correct counter and made the purchase. Billy, who was looking at the lit glass cases and holding onto his sister’s hand, heard the sound and quickly looked up, remembering.

He saw the clerk in white shirt and tie wrap the sales slip and its carbon copy with a rubber band and put it in a dull gold colored metal cylinder. Then the clerk opened a lid on a pipe that was the same gold color. As soon as the lid was opened, the cylinder was immediately sucked up and sent whooshing and clattering through the pipe that went up the wall and across the ceiling. “The flying bottle!” Billy cried. Flora smiled as Billy watched for the sales slip to come back through the pneumatic tube and clunk to a stop.

Back outside, they walked past several small shops--Nancy’s, the La Rose Shop, Robertsons-- and the big Joe Workman store. Billy knew which one was Nancy's by its orange facade, because of the radio commercial that fascinated him: several men, singing "That's Nancy, with the orange face," slightly off-key.

Billy asked where they were going next and Flora told him, “Bon Ton’s. Do you know where it is?” Billy looked past the McCory’s five and ten (almost as big as Murphy’s across the street) and the Masons building, and saw the big sign that hung over the sidewalk, with a clock in the first O and a temperature gauge in the second. “Right there!” he cried, pointing up at the sign. Billy knew the sign, a conspicuous landmark on Main Street, but he could also read it. He didn’t quite know how to read, Flora had decided. He knew his letters, and he knew certain familiar words, like Bon Ton and Singer, but she didn’t think he had put the two skills together yet. But he was close, and he wouldn’t start school until next fall.

Flora thought about sending him to kindergarten, but there was only one nearby, and she didn’t know anyone who sent their child there. Since Billy seemed to be learning on his own, and also since he still got upset and sometimes uncontrollable in a crowd of children--who could forget the monumental tantrums he threw at his surprise birthday party in Arnwood last year-- she decided against it. It wasn't worth the money. Her mother agreed, as did Doctor Spino, and so did Walt. Of course, Walt thought nobody needed kindergarten—it was just another way of taking their money.

South Main was the level part of the street that stretched through the middle of town. North of the Court House it began a steep uphill climb, cresting at Holy Sacrament Church and Greenbriar High School, before undulating out of town to become Route 66. But fortunately for Flora—with two kids in tow--most of the stores were down here, between the Court House and the trolley and bus station. That was great for the many shoppers out today, but it wasn’t so good last summer, when Jack’s Run overflowed again. It was hard to even imagine that in August there was so much water farther down South Main that people paddled rowboats in the street. That was all forgotten today, with all the people bundled up in the cold, warmed by each other, smiling a little guiltily because they hadn’t finished their shopping yet, as they hurried by the Christmas lights and decorations in the store windows.

By the time they got inside Bon Ton, Kathy was fussing. Royers had been pretty crowded but it was always kind of quiet in there. But the Bon Ton was very crowded and loud. There were no rugs on the shiny wood and stone floors, and the ceilings were higher. She promised Billy some ice cream if he would help her with Kathy while she looked at lined leather gloves for dad. She talked with a clerk at the men’s gloves counter while Billy stood nearby with Kathy looking at the lights on a Christmas tree, telling her the colors. He would point, say the color, and she would repeat it. Then he pointed and waited. She cried out the names of colors. Flora looked back once in awhile. Kathy seemed to know red but her other choices were guesses, and when she was wrong and Billy laughed, she would repeat the guess to make him laugh again.

But they both soon tired of this game, and Flora hadn’t found what she was looking for, at least not at the price she thought reasonable, so they crossed the short side street to Troutman’s, the biggest department store in town. She thought about taking them up to the third floor to see Santa, but Kathy had been frightened by the big man in the bright red suit when they were here a few weeks before, so she didn’t mention it, and they stayed on the first floor.

While she held Kathy and bought a pair of gloves--they weren’t much cheaper or any nicer than at Bon Ton’s but she was ready to give up--Billy stood looking through the glass doors across Main Street where he saw the Singer sign. She thought this would entice him, but when she started to move that way he reminded her about the ice cream. She sighed and changed direction, going back out the side door and down some steps to the little diner below street level called “The Chat & Chew.” She immediately regretted it, for the narrow diner was crowded and so hot that the glass windows were steamed up. But Billy was fascinated with the idea of being below the street and wanted to stay. He was just starting to work up to a tantrum when a booth became available and they all sat down.

Flora was impatient. It was silly promising ice cream when they would all be stuffing themselves for the next couple of weeks, and they would have cookies and candy within all too easy reach most of the time. Besides, it would just make them cold. And it was getting late. Mum would be beside herself trying to get everything done.

She tried to urge Billy along but he was still more interested in looking around in the diner, and especially looking up at the legs of people walking by on the sidewalk. His dish of chocolate ice cream sat melting, but when she mentioned it, he attacked it with intent to finish it all. Kathy was also absorbed in looking around, so a few spoonfuls seemed enough for her.

At last she got them buttoned up and ready to go out again. They crossed Main Street to the Singer store. As soon as they got inside the door, Kathy ran across the carpeted floor. There weren’t many customers and everyone who worked there knew them. Doris, who seemed to be there all the time, made a fuss over Kathy while Billy stood quietly looking around. Walt wasn’t out on the floor. He could be downstairs in the shop or more likely in the back with a favored customer, sipping some holiday whiskey. But Doris’ loud praise and Kathy’s laughter must have alerted him, and he came out. Billy, who had been so eager to come here, hardly moved. Flora exchanged greetings with Ronnie Walsh, who said he and his wife Reenie would drop by, probably on the weekend. This would be the first Christmas season Flora was able to entertain visitors in her new home. Although she and Walt had spent an evening at the homes of a few of his coworkers and their wives, like Ronnie and Reenie, they had not yet hosted any. Now they could.

They would still do a lot of visiting between now and New Year’s. All her mother’s friends expected it. The kids didn’t seem to mind. They liked going to Ronnie and Reenie’s for some reason. Kathy seemed fascinated with their fish tank. Well, it was different.

Flora talked quietly with Walt. He confirmed that he would have to stay to close up, since the manager had the day off and the assistant manager left early. Ronnie, the only other salesman there today, had the longer drive home. She reminded him that they were eating early so that they could go see his family afterwards. She gave him her packages to put in the truck, and gathered her children for the trolley ride to Arnwood.

They walked down past the public library and crossed South Main Street again to the trolley and bus station. Billy wanted to go inside—he seemed fascinated with the large waiting room—but the trolley car came right away, Number 220. She picked Kathy up and hurried Billy along, asking him if he knew what the words on the side of the trolley said. She thought he might know “West Penn” but he pretended he didn’t hear her.

But both kids liked riding the trolley, and the six mile ride didn’t take much longer than by car. After awhile the trolley ran alongside the railroad tracks, which Billy really liked. He loved trains, and wished aloud that they would see one go by. Flora was just as glad none did, for she was grateful for the quiet. There were enough seats for everyone on the trolley, and it was a quiet ride. Snow streaked the grass and clung especially to the trees higher up the hills they passed. The route itself was very flat. Soon they started passing standing coal cars and box cars that meant they were nearing the rail yards of Arnwood, and soon after, Depot Street.

When the trolley stopped near Depot Street, Billy wanted to stay on long enough to see the conductor take him stool from one end of the trolley car to the other for the return trip, but Flora told him they had to get off now or they would have to go back, and he wouldn’t get any of the jumbalones grandma had made this morning. So they got up and walked in the cold and cloudy afternoon across the black coal cinders, onto the short border of grass and then onto the sidewalk, up Depot Street.