Scenes from Silver Creek: The Night Chopin Came to Town

One night when I was about 12 or so, the family went to Johnnie’s restaurant for some occasion or other. I think it might have been my grandmother’s birthday. It was a typical night at Johnnie’s. Huge platters of antipasto and tons of garlic bread spread across the table, with Johnnie himself joining us for a glass of red.

There was an old upright piano in the corner of the main dining room, and when he was feeling expansive, or the place was quiet enough that he wasn’t table hopping, Johnnie would sit down and play one of the three songs he new. That’s Amore, Finucli Finucla, and Some Enchanted Evening. That was his entire repertoire. He once told me he practiced them over and over until he was perfect, and never learned anything else. Occasionally his eldest son, Dante, would take over and play one of his two songs, oddly enough Hound Dog or Alley Cat. Oh yeah, Johnnie could also sorta kinda play the Major General song from Pirates of Penzance but he could only play it so slow it was unrecognizable and vaguely depressing

There was a stranger at Johnnie’s that night. I don’t mean that in a Dodge City, unknown man walks into a saloon and everyone stops talking kind of way. Silver Creek wasn’t that small that you’d ordinarily notice someone new. But he was at the next table and Johnnie, being naturally gregarious, stopped to chat and we overheard the fact that he was just driving through town on his way to San Diego. Johnnie asked him what his business was and the man replied that he was a musician.

Like most Italians, Johnnie loved music. And being a professional musician was second only to being a priest in the hierarchy of Johnnie’s estimation. So he naturally exclaimed over the newcomer and started asking more questions. What instrument? What kind of music? Did he know Sinatra?

When the man had biographed himself to Johnnie’s satisfaction and proclaimed himself a pianist, Johnnie naturally invited the man to play should he feel so inclined. The man laughed, said something non-committal and modest, and turned his attention to the mushroom lasagna.

After the man had finished his complementary scoop of vanilla ice cream in a frosty sliver cup he quietly got up and crossed the room.

I distinctly recall that at the moment he began to play my brother Peter was telling an incredibly boring story about being an alter boy. I don’t know why I remember this as all of my brother’s stories were (and still are) duller than rust – but I have a clear recollection of him mercifully shutting up when the music started. I know now that it was Chopin’s Waltz in D Flat Major. On a road trip once where all we could get was a classical station, the waltz came on the air and I screamed "that's the song!" so loudly that my friend Sean almost hit a stop sign.

I’d never really heard classical music before, my parents taste running exclusively to 1940s big band tunes. But even I at the age with my untrained ear, and my amazingly dull brother Peter knew that something amazing was going on. That dented old upright had never sounded so much like Carnegie Hall. Johnnie, who had been in the kitchen, darted out as if the place was on fire. You could hear forks being dropped onto plates and conversations slowing dying until all you could hear was Mrs. Silas telling the story of how she broke her arm in Denver for the 20th time. (I mean I'd heard the story 20 times, not that she broke her arm in Denver 20 times.). Anyway, the man played as if playing for royalty instead of entertaining a houseful of white trash, garlic-scented people. And, oddly enough, the houseful of white trash, garlic-scented people appreciated it. We sat wrapped in a cloud of the most beautiful music ever heard in Silver Creek. It put Johnnie’s That’s Amore to shame.

As the last notes faded away the entire place burst into applause. The man ducked his head – half recognition, half shyness. Then without a word, he got up from the piano.

Johnnie rushed over and, in a show of Italian exuberance, pulled the man into a fierce hug. The musician hugged him back with a show of good grace and then walked to his table for the check. Of course Johnnie beat him there and tore it up. The two men exchanged a few words and then he was gone.

My father stopped Johnnie as he made his way back to the kitchen and asked him if he knew who the pianist was. Johnnie said he’d asked the stranger who replied that his name was Michael Crocker.

I have never heard that name since and always wondered who he was and why was it a musician of such talent wasn’t famous.

Every time I hear Chopin I think I smell garlic.

Photo of the day: Thunderbird

Our next-door neighbor dotes on his classic muscle car. He is constantly tinkering with it and only occasionally starts it up. It wakes up with a huge roar that has been known to scare the cat. Men.

The Reddest of the Red

This deceptively sweet face belongs to Camille (name has been changed to protect the innocent....although she's not). Camille is a red cat and she lives up to her name. Her problem is that she wasn't socialized much as a kitten and so she's very unhappy about being handled. The poor thing gets scared when you get close and she shows it by biting, swatting, and hissing. Working with her is an exercise in patience and caution and I definitely got a lesson today.

I was asked to work with her today because I've had some success in getting along with her. But today was not a good day. As soon as I opened her cage door she arched her back and gave out with a hiss you could have heard in Cleveland. I stood and talked to her quietly, telling her all about Easter dinner at my mom's and the plot of the book that I'm reading. Slowly I moved my hand closer and with each half inch she'd hiss again. I was wearing gloves, knowing from past experience that she has sharp claws and sharper teeth. Eventually I got within attack distance and she let me know that was close enough by taking a swipe at me.

After a few more minutes of talking, I laid my hand on her back and got a full-on Exorcist sound. If I didn't know better, I'd swear her head turned all the way around too. But she stayed there, ears flat, looking miserable, but not trying to eat me, which was a positive sign. She let me pet her back for a few minutes but obviously was hating it. I felt like stinky Aunt Maud trying to hug some reluctant kid. Camille was making a low, mid-throat growl and was so unhappy that I began to feel guilty. All I was doing was stroking her back, but her reaction made me feel like I was putting her on the rack.

Working with cats is a lesson in patience, something I've never really had. It's teaching me quite a lot, but it's not easy. Try standing on a hard floor for 20 minutes, petting an unhappy cat, talking quiet nonsense and hoping said cat doesn't decide to amputate your hand. It's harder than it sounds.

I wish I could say that Camille and I had a breakthrough, but we didn't. Eventually I ended the visit because a group of Brownies came in on a tour to get their looking at kitties badge and the noise and commotion freaked Camille out even more than she already was. I didn't want to stress her any more so I ended the visit.

I have decided that Camille is my new project. I am hoping to eventually get her to accept me. If I work with her a little every day perhaps I can even, one day, approach her without gloves. In the meantime, though, I'm just going to admire her photograph. She may be the reddest of the reds, but she's damned cute, isn't she?

Photo of the day: In a Corinthian Mood

Feeling all Classical.

Photo of the day: Older Than Dirt

I found this fossil in a nearby neighborhood, just lying in the dirt next to the sidewalk. I have no clue where it came from, but I have always loved it.

Photo of the day: Moon Rock

OK, it's not a moon rock. But it could be! Couldn't it?

Photo of the day: Hazardous to Your Health

I have a feeling that what was originally in this bottle would be illegal today. Some lovely patent medicine with opium is my hope.

Out of my Depth
I have a cousin who I particularly dislike. He's sexist, conservative, narrow-minded and very, very Christian. We meet as rarely as possible but I had agreed to Easter dinner with my family before I knew he was going to be there.

And I realized in my daily life I have very little to do with people who would start Easter dinner by raising his hands and saying "He is risen!."

And you know what, I like it better that way.

A Left-Handed Freemason from Dover
Have you read the Sherlock Holmes stories? I have. I've also seen all the wonderful Jeremy Brett versions on PBS. And I have come to the conclusion that I will never be observant enough to be a detective.

Sherlock Holmes could walk into a room, look at a man for 10-seconds, and declare quite definitively that he was in the presence of a retired doctor from Scotland whose wife had recently died and who had once served in India, probably on the North-West Frontier.

I can look at someone for 10-seconds and tell you whether that person was male or female. And that's about it.

How often do we look at the people around us? Not our friends, I mean we'll notice when they get a new haircut or new glasses. But when someone walks into the cafe where you're dining or you're standing in line at the grocery store, do you look around you and try to figure out who these people are?

I do. I suck at it, but it's fun. Perhaps it's the writer in me, but I love to create stories about the people I come across in my day. Unlike Sherlock I don't have the knack of correctly accessing who they are but I do have a lovely time inventing them in my head. I don't notice the small details that can give me the near-sighted musician who lives in a house without electricity. Partially because I don't want to stare and partially because I don't want to be right -- I want to amuse myself.

So I decide that the guy with the large parcel at the post office is a photographer sending proofs to his publisher in London, or the woman reading People as she waits for her yogurt and fruit to be rung up is, in fact, the mistress of a rich guy and she's heading home to her paid-for apartment to wait for Mr. Rich to stop by.

I tend to give people far more interesting lives than they probably live. I cast people as artists and political asylum-seekers. Ex-hippies and former CIA analysts. Former Russian ballerinas and aspiring French chefs. In reality they are students and harried moms, software designers and high school teachers. Auto mechanics and retail clerks. So maybe I'm doing them a favor by coloring their lives with mystery, romance, and excitement. And wouldn't they be amused to know that the woman with the glasses and the shopping cart full of cat food was looking at them and deciding they were former Navy fighter pilots?

So no, I'll never be good at telling the police they're looking for a woman with a limp and an Italian accent. But I can still make my time at the bank more interesting by trying to figure out which one is cheating on their spouse.

Photo of the day: The Little Blue Bunny Makes an Uphill Climb on Easter

The little blue bunny lives on one of our bookshelves, protecting Agatha Christie from invaders. But he came down long enough to pose for me. Happy Easter, everyone.

Scenes from Silver Creek: The Great Hallelujah Egg Hunt

For a small town, Silver Creek sure was sanctified. In addition to mom’s church (St. Edith’s Episcopal), and dad’s church (Our Lady of Angels) we also had the Calvary Lutheran Church, the Church of Christ, and the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

EBC was the closest we had to a holy-roller church and it was founded and run by one of our town’s most eccentric families, the Washingtons. Here’s the picture, two extremely devout Baptists (the gloriously named Hallelujah Washington and his wife, Esther Pride-Washington) have eight extremely devout children, all of whom were given monikers that suggest all were recently-freed slaves:

Bethesda Monday and her twin brother Ezra Monday
Gideon Tuesday
Unity Wednesday
Ezekiel Thursday
Glory Friday
Shenandoah Saturday
Jubilee Sunday

None of the family was, in fact, freed slaves. They were a crop of skinny white kids with skinny white parents who really wished they had been born black so they could have a “real” Baptist church.

The Reverend Hallelujah wanted, above all things, to preach fire and brimstone sermons. He was hindered in this achievement by the possession of a damp-matches and pudding voice. Seriously tone deaf, his desire to be a great religious orator was further hampered by his tendency to put the emphasis on the wrong words in his sermon, thereby often making “the” more important than the word “savior.” He often spoke at city council meetings and other public gatherings and I never lost the urge to giggle when he’d say something like “we’d like TO commend the football team for their great win ON Friday against the Auburn WildCATS.”

I always believed that the eight Washington kids had a hard time living up to their names. I mean it can’t be easy in the modern world to be named Jubilee. But they loved their parents and were there every Sunday to help get the church ready for services. Bethesda and Glory were great at arranging flowers. Ezra and Gideon alternated playing the organ and leading the choir. Ezekiel, who was naturally outgoing, would stand on the sidewalk inviting people in. And both Shenandoah and Jubilee were ordained ministers. The one chore that all the Washington kids balked at, and that was sitting next to Miss Rose Hylam, a vinegary old virgin with a venomous tongue. A termagant with the mixed scent of self-righteousness and rosewater. Miss Rose was the kind of woman who would tell you things "for your own good" that never did you any good. But she was quite rich and the EBC’s most generous benefactor. In her opinion, her copious donations to the church entitled her to her very own Washington at every service, helping her out of her seat, finding the right page in the hymnal, and escorting her down to the social room for punch when the service was over. And, in a mixture of Christian kindness and practicality, the Reverend made sure she always had one of his children there are her personal church-going minion. It was not an enjoyable duty so the kids made sure it was fairly split up with each taking his or her own turn as the sacrificial lamb.

Reverend Hallelujah was a sweet, friendly man who genuinely seemed to like people and was honestly proud to be of service to the community. Although he was not the Martin Luther King type of minister he dreamed of being, he was nevertheless a good man who practiced what he preached. He helped the poor. He forgave the sinners. He went out at midnight to hold hands with hospital patients and got up at dawn to drive the senior club on road trips. He was also he driving force behind the Ecumenical Brotherhood, sort of a Lions Club for Christ where he’d get the priests and ministers of all the local churches to come together for various citywide programs. They would, for example, put together an all-choir sing-along at Christmas time and held annual Forth of July parties at which each church would have a booth where you could buy things that were bad for your teeth and know the money would be going to a good cause.

One year Reverend Hal had the idea to put together an Easter Egg Hunt in Grover Park. All the local churches agreed to take part and mother’s groups all over the county spent days filling brightly colored plastic eggs with candy and small toys. The idea was that all churches would hold Easter services at the same time on Easter Sunday and then the families would gather in the park to let the little ones find the prizes.

Unfortunately for Reverend Hal, and everyone else concerned, Easter weekend coincided with “Senior Prank Week” where high-school seniors at Silver Creek High were expected to play properly harmless practical jokes on the entire town. Things like covering the fire station with toilet paper or putting a fore sale sign in front of city hall.

The year of Hallelujah’s great egg hunt year the seniors waited until late Saturday night when all the plastic eggs had been hidden and then they raided Grover Park. Like the Grinch, they took all the toys and candy. Unlike the Grinch, though, they replaced the surprises with surprises of their own and let the entire town converge on the park, all innocent, on Easter morning.

The first hint that something was wrong was when four-year old Emmy Jeevers found a lovely bright pink plastic egg with a condom inside. “Oooh,” she declared happily, “I got a balloon!”

Other children opened their eggs to find bottle caps, band-aids, walnuts (in shell) and dice. Personally, I thought the dice was a nice touch. The only candy left relatively intact were the marshmallow Peeps, all of whom were in breeding position in proximity with other Peeps.

The more conservative of the town were livid, starting with my ever-self righteous and entirely humorless Aunt Camilla. How dare these high school bullies take away the innocent fun of the children eagerly hoping to find chocolate bunnies amid the wild daisies of Grover Park?

But, oddly enough, the Reverend Hal thought it was hilarious. He laughed and laughed. And when I, along with the other seniors, showed signs of coming off of some serious sugar highs (hey, we had to do something with all that candy) he congratulated us on the prank and then ordered us to rectify the situation while he took the children to a corner of the park for story time.

We quickly pooled our resources and ran hell-for-leather down to Walgreen’s where we pretty much bought out their stock. One frantic hour later the children of Silver Creek were let loose again and got their bunnies, their malted milk balls and more virginal Peeps.

As additional punishment, the seniors had to wash every church bus in town. Hallelujah supervised us and when we were done, took us all to EBC where we were each presented with plastic eggs, each containing a “chore slip” from a local business. I, along with three others, got roped into painting all the picnic tables in Grover park. My friend Sean spent an afternoon building shelves for Jeever’s Hardware. And Bethesda and Ezra Washington, whose inspired idea it was, got the worst punishment of all. They both got Miss Rose duty for the next six months.

Photo of the day: Snow in Philadelphia

It may be Easter weekend, but apparently it's snowing in Philly. At least in my little version of it.

20 Things I've Learned From Watching Movies

1. No matter where you live. No matter what culture you're from. No matter what you're making for dinner. If you go grocery shopping you will come home with a baguette.

2. Never accept a dare that involves a graveyard, a haunted house, or a prom. Always say "no" when anyone begins a sentence with "Hey, why don't we...?"

3. No Broadway musical ever depicted will actually fit in a Broadway theatre. Oh yes, and apparently all choreography in Broadway musicals is meant to be seen from directly above the state.

4. Blood comes out of the body in slow motion.

5. If you burst into song and dance in the middle of the street, nobody will notice.

6. Children of ministers always end up crazy.

7. People can do nothing but bicker for two hours and then declare endless love in the last minutes. Alternately people will have one conversation and fall madly in love and spend the next two hours going through hell for someone they only knew for 15 minutes.

8. Any group of American soldiers in WWII had to include one wise-cracking Italian guy from Brooklyn or the Bronx, and one kid named "Jimmy."

9. If you were a kid named "Jimmy" in WWII your life expectancy was approximately 92 minutes.

10. Never, ever, dig up a mummy. Apparently mummification worked very well because they're all still alive.

11. Life was sexier when we didn't know smoking and drinking were bad for you.

12. America would have lost every war ever fought if it weren't for John Wayne.

13. Before 1950 everyone in America was white with the exception of Pullman porters and Charlie Chan.

14. The miraculous conception of every baby born before 1960 was done in separate beds.

15. Your family didn't officially count as "eccentric" unless Mishca Auer was in residence.

16. Gangsters love their mothers.

17. The only good thing to come out of Nazism is that Hollywood will never want for evil villains.

18. The middle ages were the zenith of cleanliness.

19. A "dame" will always be cooler than a "broad" and a "broad" will always be cooler than a "bitch."

20. Rule number one in The Astronauts' Guide to Getting Along with Aliens is "kill it."

Photo of the day: Stanford Art

This rather suggestive set of curves is, in fact, a sculpture of birds that stands by the Stanford Business School. I love the lines and the sexiness of it. I wish I could remember the artist but I took this over a year ago. I really must take more photos, I haven't had a good shoot since beach day.

Scenes from Silver Creek: My First Love

My first love and I were brought together through a combination of my father, Walter Cronkite, and Time magazine.

Sadly, like all the classic love affairs it ended in tragedy on January 27, 1967 when astronauts Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Ed White were killed in a fire during a test of Apollo 1. You see, I was going to grow up and marry Roger Chaffee.

I didn’t care that he was already married and I was seven. All I knew was that he was handsome and he was an astronaut. That meant he was brave, strong, smart, and being married to him would mean I would get to ride in a parade. For some reason when I was seven my big ambition was to ride in a parade. Obviously I had no career in mind because parade riding is not, as far as I know, a legitimate occupation. I was apparently a dull child. Odd too, because when it came to crushes, all I seemed to fall for was older men. Cary Grant. Gregory Peck and, my real love, Roger Chaffee.

Our love affair started when my father brought home a magazine with big color photos of the Apollo astronauts inside. My family, like most American families in the 60s was space-mad. Anything related to NASA was major news. Dad was obsessed with the space program and insisted on watching every newscast he could, every documentary shown, and every interview with anyone even remotely related to the space race.

Our coffee table was covered with the smiling, handsome, white bread faces of John Glenn and Wally Schirra. And as an impressionable young girl, with a total absence of hot men in town, I developed a wicked crush on Roger Chaffee. I was also vaguely confused because for some reason I thought we were related. This did not, strangely enough, affect our engagement. But because there were photos of him around I got the idea he was some distant, attractive, clean-cut uncle. And I’m not sure why I fixated on him as opposed to one of the other astronauts, but he was definitely the one I picked out.

To this day I still think he was wonderfully handsome. But back then I also thought he magic. Space flight as a concept was mysterious to me. Not because I was too young to understand science. But because I was too young to get what all the fuss was about.

Growing up on a diet of quirky sci-fi flicks (my brothers were addicted) I thought space travel was a given. We’d already been to Mars, hadn’t we? And wasn’t space full of amphibious monsters and cheesy special effects? What was so exciting about the prospect of going to the moon? I’d thought we’d already been there, so I just didn’t get why everyone was so excited and why it was the topic of conversation all over the world. (OK, all over Silver Creek – but back then Silver Creek was the world.)

I thought maybe everyone was in love with Roger Chaffee and that’s why the world was talking. Wow, look at this handsome man who will soon marry one of our own, going to the moon for the 800th time and fighting amphibious monsters with his bare hands. What a guy.

I didn’t understand “dead” then. My only real experience with loss was with pets or people I was not going to grow up and marry. I’d recently buried Badger, an asthmatic hamster who got a cigar-box coffin and a teary, off-key rendition of My Country ‘Tis of Thee. (Don’t ask why.) But losing my fiancée was rough.

I remember my dad turning on the TV and Walter breaking the news. Dad was stunned. Mom said a prayer. Everyone was quiet except for me asking “what? What?” And not getting an answer. Eventually dad told me, gravely, that there had been an accident and some of the astronauts had died. I asked if Roger was OK. (I figured since we were going to get married it was OK to call him “Roger” and not Mr. Chaffee.) And dad told me he was dead.

Mom had to explain dead. “Like Badger,” she said. And I pictured my handsome hero in a huge cigar box with me singing My Country ‘Tis of Thee. I think I cried. I cried harder when I asked if I could go to the funeral and mom said no. I asked if he was going to be buried in Silver Creek and got another no.

The next day I took the photo of Roger I had stolen from one of my father’s copies of Life, rolled it up in an old paper towel roll, and buried it next to Badger.

I didn’t sing anything. But I did swear I’d never fall in love. And I never did.

Until Sean Connery.

Photo of the day: Pink

For a while we thought we were getting some Spring. We had a few days of sunshine and warm weather. Nice enough to open the windows and let the fresh air in. But the rain rolled in last night and continued today. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold and gray as well. So I turned to a photo of last season's roses, to remind me that soon we will have more sunshine.

A Little Knowledge
Husband turned 40 yesterday. I turned 49 in December. Yup, 49. I'm going to be 50 on my next birthday and just typing that gives me the heebie-jeebies. And yet, not.

My beloved best friend died of AIDS in his 30s and I remember his saying wistfully that he wished some day he could turn 50. Sadly, he didn't. So I will for him. Proudly. When I hear people complain about getting older I cannot help but think that it's far better than the alternative.

Husband's turning 40 has got me thinking. In some ways it gave me a bit of the blues, but in another it made me feel...content.

When I was younger, the word "content" would have made me gag. What an awful thing to be! And yet as I've gotten older and have finally gotten to know myself better I have come to appreciate the wonders of being content. I suppose when I was in my 20s the concept would have been interchangeable with the word "settling," but now I find it a wonderful state of mind.

I love my life. My wonderful husband and my adorable cat. I love my work at the shelter and the fact that I am lucky enough to be able to spend my time doing something worthwhile. I love my cozy home and my amazing friends. I love the feeling of utter bliss when I'm curled up in the world's most comfiest bed with the man I love and the cat who drives me crazy.

And I love not being 20. Dealing with horrible first dates and existential angst. Am I pretty enough? Am I smart enough? Am I too smart? Will I ever stop dating losers and meet a guy with good oral hygiene and a sense of humor? Will I ever make enough money to afford both rent and food in the same month?

Now I know who I am. Mostly. I still surprise myself. I still learn things. I'm not perfect and I know it. It's OK, as long as I don't stop trying to get better. I've learned to cut myself enough slack to find peace, but not enough that I let things slide. (OK, maybe I slide too much -- but I'm working on it.)

And I'm sorry to get all dull and philosophic. But hey, as I've said before, this place is all about me.

Photo of the day: Land

A little grass. A lot of sand. A beautiful day in California.

Old Friends
I've been in a weird mood lately and have turned for comfort to old friends. By that I mean old, favorite books. I find something wonderfully peaceful about reading books I know practically by heart. At the moment I am happily curled into Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Old books are lovely. Especially when they fall open to a familiar, beloved page. When you have the blues there's nothing quite like letting a book fall open naturally and saying "oh yes, this is the part where they have dinner." Or "how wonderful, here's that beautiful passage about truth."

There are some books that I have truly enjoyed, loved even, but have no desire to read again. And yet others that I can read once a year and still enjoy. I wonder why that is? What makes one novel so repeatable and another a one-time only event? What makes it more curious is when there are some books by an author that I can reread and others I cannot. For instance, I love Jane Austen and can pick up Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey and happily lose myself for hours. Emma, on the other hand, I cannot.

There are nights like tonight, when the rain kicks up and the wind moans down the street. When I'm vaguely discontented that I haven't done enough to save the world or disappointed in myself for not exercising more or eating more spinach. When my back is sore and my feet are cold. And yet when there are old friends, like Dorothy L. Sayers, the world is warmer and I am happier.

Photo of the day: Happy Birthday Husband

And thanks for being my best friend. I'm so proud to be married to you. You make every day better.