Stuff Left Beside The Road

Parking in Chicago following the February 2011 blizzard.

The inside of my vehicle is a disaster of major proportions. This is not in reference to some bizarre after market add-ons or manufacturer’s design whim. It is about my accumulated stuff. I often joke to wary-eyed friends, who have the misfortune to ride with me, that there is probably a family of Gypsies hidden away somewhere in the back to whom I offered a ride at some point in the past and they became lost in the mix.

Why the mess?

Remember, I am old, ugly, and live alone. Each day when I arrive home from wherever, I have several “bags” of whatever to carry up three floors to my condo. (It is a walkup building.)

I can only handle so much and in my waning years rue making the journey more than once. So, unless you are fortunate to have a spot in one of the many bags which make it upstairs, you wind up remaining in the vehicle.

Things begin to accumulate.

There are changes of clothes that we discarded over the past sailing seasons that never made it back into the closet of my home. There are coats abandoned after the surprise of a 70 degree day. There are books that were taken along in the hopes that there might be 30 or 40 minutes to read while waiting for my turn at whatever. And there is the influx of paper lovingly called the mail – most especially catalogs from Orvis and Land’s End. And yes, shoes. Often, a single shoe mysteriously separated from its mate by the circumstances of life.

The appearance of an odd shoe always brings to mind Louise Day.

To the residents of Tallapoosa County - that area of Central Alabama which is home to Alexander City and Dadeville and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Louise Day is a major celebrity. Mrs. Day is long gone from the scene, but is still remembered. She had a fifteen minute radio shoe, although it might have been longer, which aired each day in and around the noon hour. It was aptly called “Dayly (daily) Doings.”

The content of the program offered little insight on burning issues, unless there was a brush fire that had caught her eye on the drive to the radio station or a fire truck had forced her to pull aside. Her commentary was less biting. In her sincerity, however, there was a treasure trove. Her listeners were loyal and most generally amused by the “doing” that would occupy her interest on any given day.

One of the most amusing involved her finding a man’s dress shoe alongside Highway 280. It was not so dramatic as a pair of sneakers held together by their joined shoelaces and flung aloft over the power lines.

It was a single black shoe in relative good condition. It was obviously, to her, an unintended roadside deposit, since there was no mate about.

She was very worried that the shoe had fallen from an open window of a speeding car rushing to an important appointment - perhaps an interview, or a court appearance, or “heaven forbid, an important ceremony of life.” The physics of the situation escaped any logic. Perhaps the shoe had fallen out from an opened door when the car made a stop to check a noise from a tire. Did the owner of the shoe have a bad bunion and had removed it for some relief on a long trip? Was he headed to Florida for a wedding?

She reasoned that since it was a Florsheim brand, the owner might not have other pairs to rely upon as backup since that brand was “high end” for most pockets. If the owner was a country preacher she was certain the family budget was woefully strained. But, she reasoned that most country preachers were more Tom McAn than Florsheim.

The shoe had some wear, but still a lot of useful steps ahead.

Did a child toss the shoe from the car – bored from the trip and rummaging about unseen by the parents? Would they be able to question the child soon enough to discover along which mile the leather missile became airborne?

Her most reluctant scenario involved a shoe tossed out by an angry wife. No discussion centered on how the shoe was wrestled from the left foot by a woman sitting on the right – assuming that the husband (or lover) was seated in the passenger seat adjacent. In that day, there was never a mention of a same-sex coupling. That topic would be left for post- 2000 politics.

This was also a time before the cultural phenomena of “shoefiti” or shoe tossing. And poor Mrs. Day had no idea what a “crack house” was.

But what to do about the shoe?

Should the shoe be left undisturbed beside the road in the event the owner returned or should it be retrieved and a note left at the scene? Milo Ferguson’s prediction called for rain and you know what happens with leather and water.

People, you have to think these things through very carefully.

Mrs. Day opted to retrieve the shoe, but had the Secretary at the Flint Hill Methodist Church mimeograph some flyers which she left tacked to telephone posts and in the window of Gus Holly’s Standard Station. She reasoned that people who owned Florsheim shoes would stop there instead of the Save-a-Stop.

However, during the broadcast, she rethought that decision and would include the Save-a-Stop since they sold food items and people traveling sometimes opt to shop on the road instead of packing a cooler. Besides, some coolers leak. This would be very much the case if the owner had left on his journey at the last minute – not the leaking but the packing of the cooler. Perhaps the death of a relative would have prompted a coolerless venture.

So she planned to post one in the window there as well. I am sure you missed that segue in the broadcast. All in all, she printed 25 flyers.

FOUND, MAN’S BLACK FLORSHEIM SHOE, SIZE 11-D. CONTACT LOUISE DAY! Verify you are the owner by telling me the right or left. (Directions on how to contact the finder followed.)

I didn’t hear any follow-up broadcast related to a reunion of 11-D and the left foot to which it belonged. The next time I heard Mrs. Day, she was discussing a brilliant display of spirea vanhouttei that she had seen in Flora Robinson’s front yard. She reasoned that if Flora could ever conquer her crabgrass problem, she might win “Lawn of the Month” based upon the richness of her spirea and the large Japanese Magnolia which always caught her eye as she passed.

Chicago has had a brutal winter and I would love to see something blooming catch my eye, but that won’t happen for some time, despite Punxutawney Phil’s prediction. Then it will not be a glorious spirea but a crocus or a daffodil that had the courage to believe, much like the children watching Peter Pan. (Think Tinkerbell!)

Instead, to catch the eye we have a motley collection of chairs, boxes, and boards left beside the roadway to stake a claim on a shoveled parking space. This following the dumping of over 20 inches of snow during a recent blizzard.

Snow is a burden for man and beast here. The recent storm which had snow falling at multiple inches per hour and wind gusts of over 60 miles per hour forced 1,000 plus cars to be stuck on Lake Shore Drive. The accumulation also inundated on-street parking in every neighborhood in the city. Cars were burrowed much like a February groundhog.

People with shovels appeared to inaugurate Chicago’s most honorable time of the year.

It goes like this.

After a major snow, those who own a vehicle parked on the street take several hours and considerable energy to shovel it out so that it may be driven. Once a vehicle has been extricated, the person who removed the white stuff reserves the cleaned spot by placing some object to signify ownership of an otherwise public space. Cheap resin lawn chairs are the most popular, followed by plastic egg crates. TV trays are very popular. Telescoping tubular metal chairs are also a big hit. One guy, who obviously works in home repair, used a collection of empty white splackling buckets. I have seen several decent looking swivel desk chairs. I saw a set of upholstered dining chairs which gave me pause. I guess it is a matter of priorities and availability. I have seen two ironing boards – one standing upright and another inverted.

You can either have a place to park or you can have wrinkle-free pants, but not both.

Amazingly, a city known for its rough and tumble manners and aggressive drivers honors the “reserved parking” debris. Sadly, much of the debris remains unclaimed long after the snow has melted. Honor only goes so far.

As for a better option, I would think that a couple of stackable orange traffic cones would work and could be stored in the trunk of the vehicle – unless, of course, it is my trunk in which case you would have to remove the Gypsy family.

It has gotten me to thinking about the stuff left along the highway of life. Missed opportunities. Failed endeavors. Relationships.

And a black Florsheim shoe, man’s 11-D.

Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag

Chicago is cold. Rip-roaring cold and it is very early in the season of frigid air, so this doesn’t bode well at all for January or February. Even Alabama and Florida, where I associate adjectives like mild and sultry to the temperature, is experiencing a strong northern draft.

I find myself thinking of Erika’s aria, “Must the winter come so soon?” from the Barber-Menotti opera, “Vanessa.” I am just not ready for this cold, this early.

Driving down Lake Shore Drive into the city, I looked out onto Lake Michigan and there was a cold mist rising from the waters. I remembered this drive only days ago, it seems, when I was in shirt-sleeves and shorts headed down to the harbor to take the sailboat out for a day of warm, even hot, relaxation.

“Must the winter come so soon?”

Years ago, in the days before air-conditioned environments – commercial and residential – fans, both electrical and human-powered, were important fixtures everywhere in the hot summers of Alabama where I grew up. Funeral “homes” even capitalized on the heat by giving away cardboard squares with a wooden handle attached to provide some movement of air when sitting in the stuffy confines of the Baptist church in late July. Generally these “fans” had an image of “Christ knocking at the door” on one side and a description of the services offered by the local mortician on the other.

I don’t recall ceiling fans outside commercial situations. Now, of course, every room you enter in a residence has a “decorator” fan whirling away. Most seem to have been designed by Miss Ruby, the madam at a “Nevada Social Club.” (Yes, you should read between the lines since I am not going any further down that road.)

Before we had a fan that was permanently fixed in a window to pull the cooler summer evening air into our home along with the thickly sweet, wonderful smell of gardenias planted around the yard, we had a small, table-top, oscillating fan – maybe an Emerson if my memory serves me correctly.

At some point, the fan had been loaned to a neighbor who had an ill family member and thus needed the limited comfort of the Emerson while they convalesced. The individual survived their malady and soon appeared in public. They even turned up at the Ice Cream Social sponsored by the Missionary Women at the church.

But the fan did not reappear to stir the air at our home.

It was a particularly hot summer and my parents commented about this more than once – the errant Emerson as well as the incessant heat. The two subjects were bonded with perspiration.

One day, out of the blue, the fan was returned.

I was the one who answered the door and received the valued prize.

“My parents were wondering if you were ever going to bring this back.” Of course, I spoke the truth. They had said that many times during the lingering summer heat. The cat was out of the bag!

Being new to diplomacy – I was only seven – I didn’t know the difference between private and public information. It was probably around the same time when I answered the door by saying, “Mom said to tell you she wasn’t at home.”

I was forbidden to answer the door after that. They said something about safety and strangers, but I think that it was for a different reason.

Sixty years later, my purple-haired mother had an adverse reaction to the anesthesia administered for a knee replacement surgery and became very unwieldy during her hospitalization. Her “rantings” were totally candid and lacked any editorial consideration of the persons subjected to hearing them.

On one afternoon when she was particularly talkative, it happened that a relative was paying a visit to her bedside. My sister was there as well.

Much to my sister’s horror, mother launched into a long discussion about the visitor sitting opposite. For the entire visit, the relative was forced to listen to an ongoing account of why she was unappreciated, unwanted, and disliked by my mother. It was obvious that mom had no idea to whom she was speaking. It was if she had been injected with a truth serum. She was on a roll.

It is important that you know something about my mom. She was the sole of discretion.

Late one night, suffering from a bout with a serious chest cold, she phoned my daughter hundreds of miles away. "Honey, you must promise me something and you can never let anyone know this. If I die, you must promise me to get here as quickly as possible and remove the empty bottle of scotch in the bottom of my trash bin in the kitchen. I have been sipping liquor to help my cold and I don't want that to be discovered by anyone." A very private woman with a strict sense of what is proper. And a concern for image!

But back to the incident at the hospital.

I had visited mom a couple of weeks earlier and she spoke of me, thankfully in gracious terms, without ever being aware that she was speaking to me.

But now she was smoking with diatribes.

Fortunately, our relative had the good grace to take the medication into consideration. She could have been totally incensed, but she was forgiving. Mother’s tactless railings were never mentioned. Diplomacy reigned.

But diplomacy is a very difficult thing to manage. It must be carefully pursued. It is an art which requires delft strokes. Nuance!

Richard Holbrooke was a master. He traveled those avenues with ease.

He was also the epitome of one dedicated to a cause far beyond himself. He set a benchmark for public service. He died this week and we are worse for it.

I have not read all the accounts of the Wikileaks release of private correspondence of our State Department. I feel certain the some probably bore the thoughts of Holbrooke – especially his assessments of Hamid Karzai.

He might even have mused, as I have, about whether the sleeves of the coat that Karzai always drapes on his shoulder might be sewn closed. Did someone forget to snip the basting by the tailor? Such strange posturing by Hamid.

Curiously, it is reported that one of the most explosive encounters between the Holbrooke and Karzai occurred following the recent elections in Afghanistan.

It brought to mind another election in this country. Think Florida and hanging chads.

It was probably the Supreme Court that kept Holbrooke from the big desk in the corner office and the chosen seat in the Cabinet Room. For had the votes in Florida been recounted, President Gore would have most certainly named him as Secretary of State.

This, of course, was not to happen. Holbrooke has been gracious with his “under-Secretary” role and performed tirelessly up to the end. It is reported that his final words spoken to a physician of Pakistani decent had to do with ending the elusive situation in Afghanistan.

Recently, the Little People were with their mother on a shopping trip. The older of the two – my grandson – spied a man in the shop who wore an eye patch.

Failing in his understanding of private and public thoughts – of diplomacy, he shouted and pointed, “Look, there’s a pirate!”

I wonder if Holbrooke ever pointed and shouted that at Karzai.

Roadways

I have just returned from the hinterland.

I am back in Chicago after a visit to Alabama and then on to Dallas. At both locations I was treated to great times with family – most especially “the little people,” my three grandchildren.

The smallest one, the two-year old from Florida, came up to the Alabama house with her parents. She taught me a very provocative hip sway to the Sunday School tune, “If you’re happy and you know it.” It makes you wonder what is going on during the Bible story time. She also is quite taken with the “blessing” before mealtime. She insisted we have nine or so at dinner. Since she is the “deliverer,” she would interrupt you mid-bite to pronounce yet another.

Thankfully, it involved only a bowed head and folded hands and not the adornment of a shawl and kneeling upon a prayer rug. We would have never made it past the salad.

Aside from Baby Jesus riding around in a Humvee (see December 8,2009), the Texas Two have not yet embraced organized religion. It’s not that their parents are infidels, they have just not reached the exit ramp on the highway toward discovery or re-alignment following some bumpy patches within their faith. It will happen.

I grew up in a family on the “road to discovery.” Before it occurred, I was often snatched from my parents by a rabidly fundamentalist aunt and taken to services with the Pentecostals. I have “marched in the infantry” in the “Lord’s army,” with many righteous and some "not so" souls.

My most vivid memory is a tent meeting in the country where the music was accompanied by Willie Mae McDonald’s string band – a group with a Saturday-night reputation. Willie Mae punctuated the music, on those painfully hot Sundays, with her chewing tobacco that she could aim accurately at 20 paces.

The Pentecostals always seemed to do a lot of “rebuking.” Of course everyone was “Sister” or “Brother.” That was somewhat confusing to a 6-year old. We only saw them at church, not when we had a family gathering. The most alarming expression was “Press the Lord.” It was actually “Praise” but in their charismatic fervor and their attempt to emulate the likes of Amiee Semple McPherson, it came out “press.” I thought they were taking a hot iron to Jesus.

Some pathways are confusing.

My parents discovered the local church near where we lived, so I eventually settled with the Southern Baptists until I could no longer stomach the music as they discovered the “contemporary Christian songs.” (Shades of Willie Mae.) Gone were the great hymns of the faith which were replaced with tunes that seemed like an excuse to sing Saturday-night bar tunes on Sunday. Just say Jesus instead of Robert or Sally.

I tried the Methodists and the Presbyterians before discovering the UCC. It is actually the United Church of Christ, but there are those who see it as “Utterly Confused Christians.” (Or the other scenario: Unitarians Considering Christ.)

Along the way I have heard the best and the worst – both in sermon and in music. I have been “high” and I have been “low.” Neither having anything to do with drugs but in approach to liturgy and worship.

Some of my worst experiences with “church” have had to do with ministers who perceived their role as shepherd as that of browbeater: “My way is the best.” That must derive from a concept that their sheep are not very smart.

In those situations, the roadway can get really rough.

Maybe that is why I enjoy flying so much.

A great silver-bird lifts you effortlessly above all the potholes of life for a few minutes. Aside from the fact they lose your “things” and subject you to body patdowns when you have a pacemaker, it is generally quiet and smooth. Yes, I know that you will always use the back of your hand when you go below the waist.

In contrast to the streets of Chicago, I have yet to have anyone gesture with their middle finger in the airport. Like Bernice Clifton on Designing Women, “you can only have that happen so many times until it begins to hurt your feelings.”

I seem to be “in and out” of a lot of airports.

My Texas Two have begun to believe that I live at the airport since each time they drive with their mother to DFW, Granddaddy appears or disappears.

The oldest asked his mother, “Does Granddaddy live at Departures?”

"You Can't Get There From Here"

When I asked the old-timer walking along the roadway for directions, he replied, “ you can’t get there from here.” Then he added, “you can, but it will take a long, long time.” Then he walked away.

Early this morning, with the sounds of a major city outside my window, I found myself looking through a small photo album that my sister gave me many years ago. She assembled it from memories found in a drawer in my parent’s home. It is devoted to my birth in Mississippi and my growing up in the small town in Central Alabama. The first photo is a stolen kiss between the two people who would become my parents. In the last of the photos, I am still in my mid-teens.

As I glanced at the pictures, I had vivid memories for many of them. A trip to some new place with my family was often the reason behind the snapshot. But others, when I was a toddler, I depended upon recalled stories from my parents for their meaning.

There is an emergency vehicle screaming down the street about two blocks away. The city is waking up and growling the sounds that cities make. There are noises from people walking their dogs usually trapped in highrises.

How did I get here from there – the places in the photographs?

The first time I saw Chicago was from the window seat of a Delta Airlines jet. It was a cold clear night in November of 1963. I had flown alone to visit Northwestern on my quest to discover where I would do graduate study following the completion of my undergraduate degree the coming spring. Northwestern had “courted” my ego in the form of a visit from the Dean earlier that year and I was repaying the favor.

On the table for consideration at that point were UCLA, the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin, Boston University, and after George Howerton’s visit, Northwestern. Did I mention that I had the ego that “ate the world?”

The trip to Chicago was a bribe from a deacon of the church where I worked as a choral director during my undergraduate years. In the summers, I free-lanced as an architect/designer to earn additional money for college. It was the deacon’s company that hired me, during the summers, to re-design their corporate offices in several southern states. In one such locale, I shared the company suite with the deacon/CEO and inadvertently discovered his penchant for the comfort of Jack Daniel's and local “ladies of the evening.” (One "lady" made a wrong turn. Jack was in evidence everywhere.)

Weeks later I was summoned to his office – one which I had artfully designed - and handed a first-class ticket to Chicago with an open date. His words, “I know you are interested in a great school up there in the big city. I hope you will see fit to forget my indiscretions.” He probably did not use those exact words, but I will portray him far more literate than he actually was in the interest of good taste.

So, on that cold November night as the plane descended, I looked out at on a vast sea of lights which illuminated streets totally unknown to me. I remember saying to myself, “when you are in Birmingham, you can only see about two blocks at a time. It is the same here. Just take it two blocks at a time.” Two blocks became 200, and you can do the math. While I don’t regret the choice of Northwestern over the others, Berlin would have been an interesting challenge.

It is now 7 degrees on a January morning in Chicago, many years removed. What the deacon didn’t realize was that everyone was aware he was a philanderer – even his wife - so my information would have been “no great shakes.”

However, I needed a way to get here from there.

Sitting In The Dark, Hoping To Understand

In the midst of all the talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I heard a blurb on WFMT about a new production of Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” just in time for the holiday season. The story involves a debt-ridden country attempting to capture the millions of a wealthy widow in order to save their economy. A contrived stimulus package. This has a strange ring of reality about it.

Opera and reality?

Now while I personally enjoy opera, I am the first to admit that there is nothing created by humankind that is more bizarre. Think about it: singing a dialogue, generally in a foreign language, then reflecting upon this dialogue with soaring melodies that challenge the bounds of the vocal physiology. All the while, this supported by a symphonic ensemble, a stage crew, prompters, lighting technicians, and an adoring public prone to wearing capes and peering through the darkness of the theatre via little golden binoculars held in place by “mother of pearl” sticks. (Okay, so I have exaggerated a bit about the capes and the opera glasses. But, only slightly.)

When people have expressed reluctance to attend opera because of not understanding the language, I have always insisted that even without knowing the language, there will be enough happening on stage to give one a basic understanding of the story.

After attending a performance of Kodály’s “Székely Fonó” (The Transylvanian Spinning Room), I may wish to amend that.

My encounter with this opera took place at the grand Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. This is a house built in the late 19th Century in a Renaissance/Baroque style and a lavish tribute to the operatic art form. Like opera, itself, everything about this palace for performance is a bit “over the top.” Since the Kodály work was new to me, I attempted with no success to research the story in advance. Having failed, I was reassured by my mantra to others: “there will be enough happening on the stage to give a basic understanding of the story.”

In this staging, the house lights lowered and you heard the sound of a steam locomotive pulling to a stop. Stage lights revealed several figures in black trench coats and black hats standing in front of the curtain. As the idle train hissed the sound of escaping steam, two figures divested their dark coats and hats to reveal heavily decorated Hungarian folk dress. In an immediate blackout, the train is heard to pull away and in a bit, stop again. The lights go up on the same group and two more people divest revealing brightly-colored folk costumes. This continues until the whole group stands before us in their traditional native dress. At this point, the music began and the curtain opened onto a large room filled with spinning machines. In the background there was a simulated forest with various wooden bridges on and over which people in black trench coats sometimes appeared. (Remember the train?) Downstage, near the edge is a box from which objects/props were removed from time to time. There was a bridge across the orchestra into the audience over which people sometimes left. I don’t recall if anyone ever returned from that direction. People sang. People embraced. People sometimes looked really sad. A couple of times I caught the glimpse of a smile. (Someone either happy or out of character.)

Despite watching everything intently, I have no idea what this opera is about. I can only say that everyone who started out singing was still singing in the end and seemed happy about things. The people in black trench coats were no longer hovering ominously in the background. The music was up-tempo.

Since the month-long wedding of Fernando and Christine back in 1589, opera has captured the imaginations of music lovers. My good friend, Mike, recently purchased season tickets to the opera. Having grown up in a less urbane part of the Midwest where there were not a lot of opportunities to hear opera, he wanted to experience a new musical idiom. Sadly, Mike’s first encounter was opera on hormones: Wagner! Some of these operas last for days with nothing even approaching reality.

Once, at a performance of “La Bohème” at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, a stage that boasts the largest proscenium opening of any opera house in the world, the curtain opened to reveal the humble loft of the starving artists of the story. In this design, rather than being a small hovel amid the Paris skyline, this loft encompassed the whole of the vast opening of the Lyric stage.

The older lady seated to my left whisper loudly to her friend beyond. “It’s no wonder they are so poor; trying to heat that place.”

Lady, it’s opera. Like our economy, don’t expect anything reasonable. Just sit in the dark and hope to understand.