A Maybe Farewell to a Morning Pleasure

As I finish my coffee and turn the pages of the newspaper on the table it struck me that maybe the days of this morning ritual may be numbered. There is no doubt that the paper has fewer pages than in the past. Sections have been combined. Alongside a movie review there is a recipe for meat loaf and next to it a comparison of mats for yoga.There are fewer full page ads for anything from women's clothing to home furnishings. And the daily classified ads are reduced to a paltry four pages attached to the sports section. There is also news that another east coast newspaper had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For a moment I almost have a panic attack.

But the more I thought of it, the more I considered that it was just another human endeavor that is headed for eventual extinction like the tintypes of old. First television news, then the computer began conspiring, with their ten second spots and blogs, to eliminate my daily routine of going out, regardless of the weather, to retrieve the paper and then returning to spend the next hour or so leafing through it on the kitchen table to catch up on what happened in the world at large overnight.

It is not likely that I will ever develop the same cozy relationship with my computer that I have with my morning paper. For one thing it does not rustle and also there is no odor of fresh ink. And if I should spill coffee or smear butter from my toast on my newspaper, I do not have to worry about what electronics I just short circuited.

Anyone for IKEA?

Admittedly I am well past the age of dreaming of furnishing a house, but I like to wander through the exhibit rooms and admire all the accoutrements that might have made my daily life better organized. If IKEA had been around some thirty five years ago, my late wife would have turned our home into a shrine to IKEA.

It’s not so much that I have a thing for home furnishings, it is just somehow reassuring to watch the young couples roaming the exhibits, she with a tape measure and a list and he pushing a cart half full Swedish labeled boxes maybe with a toddler or two in tow. It gives me a sense that the world is not coming to an end soon when these young people are still looking to build their lives regardless of the turmoil in the world at large. Those problems fade as they try to decide between the color and design of a living room settee or a bedroom suite.

But the fun doesn’t end there. Take a stroll through the market place area with its bins chock full of mysterious boxes with Swedish labels which are impossible to decode. Kitchen ware, lamps of all sizes and shapes, linens and towels, and closet fixtures fill the aisles on the way to check out. There must be something there that you cannot live without.

And did I mention the food? The chief attractions are Swedish meatballs and a wondrous assortment of Swedish torts and cakes. These are not only delicious but inexpensive. I have read that IKEA in Germany is a prime dining location, maybe not so in epicurean Dallas, but certainly worth a try.

But that is not the end. Exiting the store there is the aroma of fresh cinnamon buns filling the air. Huge cinnamon buns oozing with icing are just waiting to go home with you. What better way to end the day.

The Western Flyer

Every time I passed the Western Auto store on the way home from school, I would stop and look in the window. There it was, a shiny sky blue Western Flyer with a red lightning streak on the crossbar. It had balloon tires, fenders, a back fender rack, a kick stand, and best of all a huge suspension spring above the front wheel that would supposedly smooth out all the ruts in the road. Without doubt it was the most beautiful bicycle in the whole universe. I could see myself pedaling like the wind down the street and jumping curbs with abandon with the rest of my friends.

But things had not gone well with my parent’s jobs that year. Mom worked in Chinese owned
department store and made just a little over minimum wage. Dad’s job with a caterer had been slow and he had been taking fill in jobs in local restaurants as he could find them. So I just knew in my heart that I and that Western Flyer would never be together on the streets of Pasadena.

Christmas morning I woke up early. Mom had told me the night before not to come out of my room until she called. I could hear rustling and the front door opening and closing. The suspense was excruciating.
Finally Mom called and I rushed into the living room and there was the Western Flyer with a huge red ribbon tied on the handle bars. I thought my heart would jump out of my chest as I hugged my mom and climbed onto the saddle.

There have been many Christmases since then but never one so fondly remembered. Many years passed before I came to understand what it took for my parents to give me that bicycle.

Terminal Island

The island is still there under the six lane elevated bridge that connects Long Beach to San Pedro. It is a narrow strip of land which is now a forest of warehouses and industrial buildings. There is little to identify it as the summer place it used to be for my family in the early thirties. The camping site that was in the seaward side of the island is gone and probably no one remembers it but me.

I looked forward to each summer when in early August we would load up the car with provisions and camping gear and Dad would drive us to Terminal Island. He would set up two tents, one for sleeping and the other for storage and cooking. Then he would leave us, me, my Mom, and Nana, my grandmother, and return to the city where he worked as a cook. He would return on Saturday and go back to work late Sunday evening.

First thing in the morning just as the sun was rising, I would take my surf fishing pole along with the bait I had bought the night before and head for the water’s edge. I would attach two baited hooks to long leader and a two ounce sinker and cast out into surf that rippled onto the shore. I would dig a hole in the sand to hold the pole and settle down to wait for some hapless hungry fish to strike my bait. More often than not I would return to the camp site empty handed.

Later in the day I would join the other kids in the camp to play in the surf or hunt for shells or other treasures washed in by the high tide. All of that was fun but it was later after supper when the magic started. The campers would drag out their chairs and encircle the communal fire pit to gossip and sing or just enjoy the starlit sky and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. Us kids would play tag in the dark beyond fire light and maybe toast some marshmallows as the fire logs turned to embers. When the fire finally died we would head back to our tent to sleep and wait for a new dawn.

Apricots

It's summer and as I make my way through the aisles of produce section of the super market the bins are full to the brim with all manner of seasonal fruit, peaches, nectarines, plumes, grapes, and, of course, orange gold apricots. Inevitably I am taken back seventy or more years to when I lived on Mentoria Court in Pasadena. Summer meant raiding the apricot trees that were heavy with fruit in the abandoned lot that was on the corner. It was a challenge as to who would get the best fruit --- us or the birds.

By us I mean, Ethyl, Billy, and I who were the only kids who lived on this dead end street with four houses on each side. Ethyl and Billy were older than me. I was eight or nine and lived in the second house from the corner with my mom, dad, and Nana, my maternal grandmother. It was a rather ordinary ranch style house just like the others on the street except for the house next door where Mrs. Le Ritz lived. Her house was a white gingerbread house surrounded by glorious rose bushes and an impossibly lush green lawn. Mrs. Le Ritz was a widow lady who kept much to herself and tended to her roses. She had few visitors. From time to time someone would come and pick her up. I think it was her daughter. Mrs. Le Ritz looked every inch the picture of a lady in a floral flock and big hat as she walked down the drive and got in the car. In the few years we lived there we never go to know Mrs. Le Ritz well except to say “Good Morning” occasionally. It was just that we had nothing in common.

Ethyl was Ethyl Jacobs and her father was a junkman who roamed the streets with decrepit truck and picked up scrap metal and anything else people might discard that might be salvageable. They lived directly across the street and their backyard was a treasure trove . It was great fun and adventure to scrounge through the latest acquisitions and wonder where they had come from.

Billy Williams lived at the end of the street. Billy’s father had a good job and their house was well kept and had huge front porch where we used to hang out. Billy had a marvelous talent. He had a knack for building model airplanes. His father built him a little shack where he could keep his supplies and build his models. I spent many hours there with Billy watching and wishing I had his skill.

But let’s get back to the apricots. The vacant lot did have a house that had been boarded up for years but we never got up enough nerve to try to explore the empty house. It was enough that there were four huge apricot trees that bore golden fruit faithfully each year. I have not been back there for many years. I doubt that the street even exists any longer. It is probably buried under a new freeway. But never mind, the memories are freshened each year as I stop in the produce section and fill a bag with apricot memories.