Category Archives: memoir

And Now, This…

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by in Exercise/ Fitness, memoir, recovery, Uncategorized

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I was up at 2:30 AM, stayed awake til 5:30. I wanted to see J off to work around 4:20. Then I went back to bed. I slept til around 9:30. I went to AA, and shared a traumatic moment from my childhood, that I rarely talk about. I must have been 8. It was summer, August. Mother was in a particularly angry(?) or emotionally distraught mood. I was not good at psychological assessment at that age. She was upset, and was about ready to drink a bottle of Dickinson’s Witch Hazel until I knocked it out of her hand. It was a glass bottle and it shattered. Nothing was ever said about this ever again. I thought she was going to kill herself. I knew that was a bad idea.

Now I know that this was an event of childhood trauma for me. And since, sixty-one years later, it still haunts me, this might be PTSD.

Having shared that, I went about my day. I did some shopping, found a nice beef eye round. I felt like taking a nap, but changed my mind and went swimming at the Y, first time this month. I did 1750 meters. And shaved afterwards. I used all the grooming products that make me feel masculine. As we say, if you want to gain self-esteem do estimable things. I slew one dragon from my past, bought a nice roast, and went swimming.

Now we are waiting to go get $1 tacos. I am working my way up out of the pit I fell in.

#Me Too?

16 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in memoir, Sacrifice, Sexuality, Uncategorized

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I’m sitting in my chair. I went to AA earlier. A memory keeps surfacing. It is painful and yet I want to exaggerate my response, minimize the significance, although the incident occurred fifty one years ago on the same kind of cloudy, chilly autumn day that we have today.

I remember details, the reason why I was there and the reason my abuser gave for raping me.

I was seventeen, a track and cross country runner. It was cross country season. And I was a Senior, Captain of the team. And I developed swelling and discoloration in my lower leg. We didn’t know exactly what it was, but it could have been a blood clot. So I went to my family doctor.

His practice was in a building called St Luke’s Hospital on Harrison and Grace Streets. The neighborhood was sketchy then; gay beer joints that you wouldn’t know were places where gays cruised, unless you were gay. There was a movie theater that showed slightly risqué foreign films, like The Lovers with Jeanne Moreau, tame stuff by today’s standards or by the porn explosion that came after Deep Throat.

Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University) and the University of Richmond’s University College were there. In 1968, their primary purposes were to provide student deferments to keep middle class kids out of Vietnam. Higher Education, at its best. (note sarcasm and irony in statement).

So here I am at the family doctor, getting my leg checked out. Were I gay, I guess I could have been considered a twink, in today’s patois of the subculture. So my lean, 17 year old muscular runner’s ass is there for a diagnosis, a competent medical opinion about this oddity in my leg, when kindly old Doctor Respectability decided I needed (Get Ready For It!) a prostate exam.

“Drop your shorts.”

Shorts dropped.

“Bend over the table.”

I bend over. He starts probing me with what I assume are fingers. I dunno. When he’s done he hands me a box of tissues to “clean up”. There is some fecal matter there. I pull up my shorts and leave. I leave with this funny feeling that hasn’t gone away after fifty one years. Rape? I dunno.

No subsequent digital rectal examination has ever felt like that one.

I won’t say that my life was messed up because of that office visit. Other stuff did most of that. I won’t say I got warped ideas about human sexuality because of that rather, uh, comprehensive digital exam. The warping began years before.

This whole thing was just one stop in the sexual penny arcade we all visit in the course of living.

At least I am sober today.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in memoir, Mid Century Modern, Sexuality, Uncategorized

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There was a song from my childhood Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days Of Summer, sung by Nat “King” Cole. It was catchy because, even today, after almost sixty years, I can’t get It out of my head sometimes.

It was a Summer where my father had his gall bladder removed, in the days before laparoscopic surgery. This required opening up the abdominal cavity to excise the offending organ. It took a while to recuperate, but it did leave a cool scar. We kids were farmed out to our extended family; my elder brother and I stayed with our Uncle W and Aunt J, my sister and younger brother to Pop and Grandma Eva.

I guess I remember all this now because of my son’s episode with his gall bladder. And this Summer is almost over. I did not swim outside rven once this year. I don’t “tan”. Sitting around outside is not my thing. During the Gall Bladder Summer, our aunt took us to this fancy recreation center, Ginter Park Recreation Association. There was a nice pool. It was architecturally impressive, kind of a Tudor Style building, consistent with the anglophilic spirit of Richmond. That was the summer I saw my uncle eat dinner in his underwear, actually with just his trousers off, his shirt and tie remained on. Maybe he had a meeting later, with the Masons or the Republicans or a Vestry meeting,and the press of his trousers needed conserving, but Daddy never ate in his underwear.

This is also the year we played strip poker with my cousins. I lost, was totally naked. They teased me and I hid in a closet. So, is that why I am somewhat “peculiar”? It was powerful humiliation with homosexual overtones. I don’t know. This little incident, coupled with my uncle’s choice around dressing for dinner, were truly formative experiences.

Getting back to the song. It seemed to fit. These were times of lunch counter sit-ins, The Cold War, Cuba. People went to drive-in everything, movies, burger joints, even churches in Southern California..

There were psychopathic killers then and executions of psychopathic killers. Westerns were on television, along with cigarette commercials, quiz shows, and, of course, Sitcoms, all in summer reruns. The new tv shows came in The Fall, along with new car models. The season change was about New Stuff. We didn’t know it then, but popular culture was controlled by advertising agencies in New York. Think Mad Men.

We wanted to believe we were a modern world, making progress. People waited on line for vaccinations against polio. Imagine that happening today.

Simpler time? Actually pretty damn complex, hierarchical in ways we can’t imagine. We live still in reaction to that time, while still buying in to the notions of material progress that set the tone of yesterday and today.

Unplugged

16 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in Family, memoir

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I spent the morning attempting to unplug from my Smartphone, television, and the cyberworld. Sleeping helped. Otherwise, no luck. I think it is a matter of discipline. What works against me is that so many of the activities that satisfy me come from the digital world.

After a surprisingly good meal of corned beef and cabbage at Cracker Barrel, I came home and had another nap. The low energy I’m experiencing is attributable to the pollen making its presence felt. Good Old Mother Nature.

I’m doing some trainspotting, watching the Ashland Virtual Railfan LLC Channel on You TUBE.

Early Spring is a great time of year. I have plenty of fond memories, especially when my younger son was little and I was a single parent. His mom’s Healing Touch practitioners group met on Friday nights and we would start our weekends then. Sometimes I would fix homemade macaroni and cheese. Other nights we would pick up a pizza at the restaurant next door to the apartment.

We would watch a Flash Gordon serial or Disney’s Darby O’Gill And The Little People, featuring a yet to make it big Sean Connery. This was in the Dark Age of VHS on videocassette players. Remember? He would fall asleep in my bed. The days when my children always wanted me around them were the best.

My point is that only twenty years ago, the digital incursion into daily life was smaller than it is now. Yet we considered ourselves highly advanced and sophisticated. And we were.

Now I have to check my Smartphone regularly. I am writing this post on the same phone. I’m sure that Aristotle, were he alive today, would be fully engaged with this digital universe. So maybe I will just enjoy the modernity.

Madeleines. Ice Cream.

26 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by in memoir, Summer

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The Bottle In Question

OK, most everybody with any reading experience has at least heard of the start of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past (A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu), wherein the protagonist bites into a madeleine and the taste of the little cake brings back a flood of memories. Well last night I bought a carton of ice cream at Publix and had a similar experience. The flavor was maple walnut. It was full fat ice cream. (These days admitting you like full fat ice cream is like admitting you enjoy unprotected sex with total strangers. You have self- identified as a risk taker.)

I remember from my childhood, where the family, all six of us, would pile into the car on a hot summer night, drive with the windows down, go get ice cream cones, and then cruise around, looking at stuff. One particular night, Daddy took us to the Curles Neck Dairy Bar, a lunch counter/ ice cream shop that sold their own ice cream It was a local dairy, that had their own farm in Eastern Henrico County (Charles City County, maybe?). Curles Neck denotes one of several bends in the James River. Local dairies were in business then. I ordered a maple walnut cone one night. Then we rode in the 1953 Nash Ambassador Super to Byrd Park, where colored lights shone on the fountain in the Fountain Lake. Quite lovely. I remember the orange colored light on the fountain most distinctly.

This was the great era of neon. Cities, like Richmond, were filled with fantastic signs. One Chinese restaurant, Joy Garden, had a neon sign evocative of an oriental lantern. Gorgeous. The sign was more memorable than the food. The cookie maker, FFV, had its letters illuminated on a water tank, on the roof of its now defunct factory, re-purposed to loft apartments. There was a billiard parlor,the Triple Triangle, that had neon billiard balls racked-up in the triangle Every burger joint had neon tubing outlining their roof, or part of it, at least, in red or blue or green. It was an illuminated night, reflective of an optimism and pride in the businesses of the community.

There are vestiges still. The flavorings and spice maker here in Richmond, The C.F. Sauer Company, has an animated sign featuring a mustachioed chef in a chef’s hat sampling something, as a string of bulbs light up. The night was a show. When I think of illumination these days, I think sodium vapor lights, making the community a little safer from thieves and predators lurking in the dark.

Today, I have a milk bottle from Curles Neck Dairy. I use it to fill the reservoir of my coffee maker. It holds a quart of water. and I can use eight tablespoons of ground coffee to make four eight-ounce cups of coffee with the water poured from the milk bottle. Kinda cool, I think. It’s a memory, or a bite of a madeleine, every day.

Natty Boh: A Memory

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in alcoholism, Baltimore, memoir

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(I do not own the copyright to this image. The folks at Pabst Brewing do. I am not using the image for commercial gain and hope they understand.)

That cartoon image of the one-eyed chap with the handle bar moustache is an image from my childhood. Way back in the 1950’s there was broadcast on local television here in Richmond, a show called Strikes ‘N’ Spares. Its subject was bowling, duckpin bowling. Most of y’all don’t know what duckpin bowling is. The pins are smaller. The ball is smaller, fitting in your hand, about the size of the ball used in bocce. The bowler has three rolls per frame, rather than the two of ten pin.

The show originated from Baltimore, just up Rte 301, I-95. or the railroad tracks, where duckpin was, and still is, popular. The game is loads of fun. It was the first bowling game I played. We played it on Fridays in Freshman Physical Education at Willow Bowl just west of my high school. They came and picked us up on an old school bus, repainted baby blue, from the old school bus yellow. WILLOW BOWL was printed on the side where the old school district legend once was emblazoned.

The sponsor of said show was National Bohemian Beer, known colloquially as Natty Boh. This was a strong, Baltimore-brewed brand, popular in the Richmond market as well as Baltimore. As time ground on, Budweiser, Miller, and, at one point, Schlitz, took away market share from local brands like National Bohemian. The financially weaker local brands disappeared or faded into the background, becoming minor players in the beer market.

To this day, I can sing the National Beer jingle. I’ve pulled the cartoon commercial up on YouTube. Still has that funky naive charm that Fifties commercials possessed. Whether this advertising subtly seduced me into the drinking life, I can’t say. But they did portray beer as an innocent enough beverage.

Back then, we had no admonitions to enjoy beer “responsibly”. In Virginia, the Baptists and Methodists still had enormous cultural sway. They set the tone. Drinking was not cool. There weren’t bars selling hard liquor by the drink till the late 1960’s. A different world it was.

Waking At Night

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Bloggers, memoir, Old Cameras

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I get up at night for many reasons, a full bladder, upset stomach, too hot in the bedroom, to name a few. Then there is the sheer boredom that is trying to sleep. 

So I head to the bathroom, urinate, go downstairs for a glass of seltzer to settle my stomach.  I read a bit of a butch lesbian pornographic/erotic love story that is completely engaging, look at some Tumblrs that I follow and discover a new one about French photographer Robert Doisneau. Suddenly I remember my promise to get my conventional 35mm SLR Pentax K1000 up and running again.

I remember a time 35 years ago when I first got it. I discovered the magic of 32 ASA black and white film. I started photographing old derelict buildings on two lane country roads in Lunenburg County, Virginia, tobacco curing sheds, abandoned barns, stores long gone bust, What happened to those pictures? There was the property settlement of that particular divorce. Did I get them out of the house? If so, where are they here? I fancied myself a photographer, dreaming of being one, embarrassed that my pictures were perhaps too imitative of the photographers I admired, Weston, to name one. 

Time to get back to dreaming with my hands. A Baptist preacher once told me “Prayers work when they have feet.” He was a pretty smart guy.

Friday And Fish Sticks

20 Friday Oct 2017

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I had a tomato caprese panini (or is that panino?, singular?) for lunch, with a bowl of minestrone. I do the abstain from meat on Friday penance most weeks. It reminds me of my childhood. I wasn’t raised Catholic but the public school I attended always had fish sticks on Fridays. They were served with boiled potatoes  sprinkled with dried parsley, boiled cabbage, and corn bread. I still like fish sticks. Until now, that has been one of my darkest secrets. Now you know.

It is a quiet day on the trainspotting front. The trains have been rolling through Ashland more or less on time. Right now, I’m waiting for the Northbound Carolinian #80 to pass through. It is about 15 minutes late. The leaves are just beginning to turn, but it is hardly dramatic. Here comes #80 Northbound just as a southbound freight, hauling intermodal containers, passes on the other track. This is like having a model train layout.

Looking at the box cars covered with graffiti, I often wonder if there would be less graffiti on freight cars, if there were more funding for the arts in public schools. Or would we simply have better trained graffiti artists?  As President Obama once said, “That question is a little above my pay grade.” (To answer, that is).

I had a slightly longer swim last night, 3500 meters, in a pool slightly warmer, than the temperature in my regular pool. I will be leaving in a short while to do my swim for the day.

The quiet of our home and neighbourhood during the day is most soothing.  I can hear a few insects chirping and the noise of the compressor on the fridge.

MrsCorC?  is working a late shift so dinner is just for me tonight. I could go buy some fish sticks. Maybe I will.

Memory Chain Reaction

19 Friday May 2017

Posted by in Family, food, memoir, Suburbia

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1953 Nash Ambassador

It is the 1950’s, a Friday night, and we need to go grocery shopping.  We have one car, a 1953 Nash Ambassador Super, black body with a red top, Continental wheel, straight 6 engine, three on the tree, and overdrive. A righteous car. We all pile in the car, Dad, me, my elder brother in the front, Mama, my sister, my younger brother in the back.  That’s the we way we did riding in the car. Mother did not drive. We had just one car anyway.

We went to the A&P. Some people went to the Safeway; some people shopped at the Colonial Store; some went to Siegel’s (run by brothers Hip and Charlie). There were other local independent supermarkets and superettes (so asserted Richfood, the local buyers’ co-op).  But we went to the A&P.  To a child’s mind, this was almost like our religious affiliation. We were Presbyterians on Sunday who shopped at the A&P on Friday and we all rode in the same car to go to both church and store.  “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world.” 

We would shop.  Dad preferred Bokar Coffee, available only at A&P.  That’s probably why we went. Dad was as serious about his coffee as he was about this country, the Marine Corps, the Presbyterian Church and the Republican Party.  Coffee was serious business in his family. His father (Pop) called it “Arbuckles”. The first coffee I ever tasted was what Pop gave to me from a spoon, with cream.  Still the best coffee I ever tasted.

The A&P was on Meadowbridge Road in Highland Park, near a fire station.  The neighborhood was transitioning from all-white to all-black.   Next to the A&P was a High’s Ice Cream Store. It was a local chain, that had chrome steel swivel stools at the counters.  They sold ice cream at five cents a scoop. The single scoop cone had a pointy end. Sometimes we would be mean to my sister and bite the tip off her cone. (I think she forgave us for this. At least I hope so.)  The High’s Stores were staffed by these little old ladies who wore pale pastel-green dresses (like the old fashioned nurses’ uniforms) and hairnets, white hairnets.  As drug addiction grew in the Richmond area, the junkies would rob the High’s Stores to get the money for a fix..  Eventually the High’s Stores went out of business and the junkies moved on to the 7-Elevens.

Ice cream was a big deal. On a hot summer night, we would get in the car, ride to High’s, Dairy Queen, Tastee Freez, or the Curles’ Neck Dairy Bar.  When we went to Curles’ Neck, we could get an awesome maple nut ice cream.  Then we would ride down to Byrd Park and watch the illuminated fountain in the Fountain Lake.  It was fun.  It was free. My Dad, who worked between his civilian job and his Marine Reserve duty almost constantly, loved this time with his children.  We loved this time with him.

In retrospect, all of these simple pleasures were living on borrowed time.  What destroyed them was affluence and the advertisers who promoted bigger and better versions of fun.  So now we go to Disney World or Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion, for better or worse.

Remembrance Of Things Past

19 Friday May 2017

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Two years ago, my elder son decided to take on clearing out my late brother’s house.  My brother was a hoarder. We found many artifacts from the not too distant American past. 

Does anyone remember seeing this on a can at the grocery store?  It brings back the whole shopping experience before the advent of the barcode reader. The clerk would key-in the prices manually into  

the cash register. It would makes this noise from all the little gears and wheels turning.  It was a different time.