I had been to that building every couple of weeks for over a year and never had the epiphany I had this day. How did it happen you ask? Well, I for the first time actually looked up from the ground and noticed this guy walking towards the building in the mirrored glass, he had on a nicely pressed suit, navy pin-stripe I believe; kind of looked like a sales rep from Proctor and Gambol. He had a gray beard, very well-trimmed, I must say, and what looked like the start of the down-hill slide to a balding pate. His glasses darkened from the bright sun, probably the kind that darken automatically. Everything looked pretty good except for one thing, he looked so very much older than me, probably an old professional sales rep, I thought, it might be me someday!

As I got closer to the building and those sparkling mirrored windows, I noticed something peculiar, there was only one persons reflection. What the hell? Were was my reflection? I was certain that I hadn’t turned vampire on myself, besides it was a bright sunny day, not good for vampires, right? And then it happened, only a few feet away from the reflection, the epiphany, the guy in the mirror was me, it had to be me, no one else around to claim the reflection, though my brain certainly refused any claim to the reflection.

Now you probably think I’m a crazy old man for writing such dribble, but you have to believe that every morning, in my steamy bathroom mirror appears a much younger man than me, he has looked the same for many years now. His face, chin, neck, and hair without age affectation, and the gray, well it’s actually silver you know, and very attractive, and somehow, the bald spots never seems to appear to these jaundiced eyes. Amazing, but this seventy year old guy still sees a thirty-five year old in the reflection, and why not, that’s the age his brain picked! And, I’ll tell you another thing, as much grief this old body has heaped upon me over the decades, my brain refuses to believe the reality of it all. It’s an absolute mutiny with the body; brain refuses to give in to the writing on the wall, or was it the reflection on the mirrored glass wall?

So how did it all turn out? Easy, for the balance of the trips past the mirrored facade, this old sales executive just kept his eye on the ground for things that might cause him to trip and break a hip; there just wasn’t an opportunity to look at the reflection any longer, bingo the brain wins!

The cheese already cut, unfortunately, and the trunk was not insulated! Will I say more about this? I’ll try.

I have told this story before, more than a couple of times too, however, I don’t know if I have it in me to write about it properly. So here I am, I’m going to give it a try now… well, we will soon see if I can follow through.

It was on our trip to California back in ’51, six of us, crammed into a brand new Fraser automobile, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Nana, and us two kids. Surprisingly, we all fit, the car was a really big sedan and had that new car smell. Well, not for very long!

You see, Grandpa was the owner of a grocery store in the Little Italy part of our home town, and he had lots and lots of business friends in the area. There was the fresh Chicken store, the Deli and Bakery stores, and the Cheese store too. I think the owner of the Cheese store was a very good friend of Grandpa because he gave him a really big round wheel of cheese, probably was the Parmigiano Reggiano kind. Covered in black wax to protect it I guess, however, something drove Grandpa to cut it open for a taste test, or maybe he gave a small chunk to a friend of his, I don’t know, and why is not really important to the story anyway.

The trip took nine days in August to get to California from Massachusetts; you saw that it was August, right? Hot August, sometimes humid August, sometimes dry August, but always HOT August! Did I mention that air conditioners were not a normal part of cars back then, no I don’t think I did. Did I mention that it wasn’t really considered important to insulate the trunk of a car back then? Nope, I didn’t mention it until now. Can you imagine the combination of hot, enclosed spaces, and opened Italian cheese? No I don’t think anyone can ever come even somewhat close to what that smell could be.

This is where the story gets difficult to write, I don’t think I have it in me to try to remember that hideous smell again. I don’t even want you to even attempt to imagine the aroma! However, I’m letting you off easy, you see, whatever chemical reaction transpired with the hot August heat, enclosed space, and smelly cheese, was permanent! Imagine, our clothes packed in the truck, stunk, however after a few months of washing the odor subsided, but the poor brand new car never did overcome that unmentionable odor. Three years later, Dad bought us a brand new ’54 Buick, but only after complaining over and over from us. Just how long that odor remained in the car is unknown. But it’s a good bet the person buying the used Fraser, that was in otherwise great condition, had to have the stuffiest nose in the world. I pity his poor family! Really, I do!

Moved to the first house our family owned, a cottage built-in the 1870′s that had wallpaper unchanged in over 80 years!

It was right after WWII ended and I was probably five or six years old at the time. I remember wanting to be a good little helper for my parents as they tried to update this museum of late nineteenth century living the good life. The first item on the list of “to-dos” was to remove some really bad wall paper choices someone made eighty years earlier! Even as a little guy, I knew how badly it needed to be changed.

Dad had some kind of steam machine that made peeling the old paper off the walls a breeze. Big old strips of aged Caramel-colored printed paper came tumbling down to the floor easily, and it was my job to pick them up and stuff them into round wooden bushel baskets. This was fun, if not sticky work, but I’m a kid, I don’t know how to be lazy yet!

There were only a few of these bushel baskets to work with, so the routine was after I filled them up and then stomped them down to add more waste, Dad would take them down the old rickety stairs into the dark basement so he could burn them in the old coal-burning furnace. Well that was their plan, my plan was to be a big helper, remember, I’m a little kid! So I grabbed a basket filled with old paper, which was not the easiest thing to do, and started to follow him to the basement. I did pretty good getting to the stairs at the back of the house , and started to make my way down the stairs. I got about five stairs under control, considering I could hardly see over the top or sides of the basket. And then, it happened, I hit one of the loose boards on a step that I couldn’t see or really know about.

You see, the basement was too dark and spooky for this kid to venture into by myself, but with Dad in front of me I was feeling brave. Not that he knew I was behind him anyway, well not just yet. Now he knew I was there, because as I began my head first fall down about a dozen rickety steps, my head fell into the basket of sticky old wallpaper scraps, and I continued my fall, head over heals until I hit the wall where the stairs took a left turn. I landed on my butt with the bushel basket still on my head. Cushioned by the basket and sticky papers, I really didn’t get hurt, just a few scrapes and maybe a couple of splinters of old stair wood in me.

I remember getting yelled at for taking the basket down to the basement when that wasn’t my job; I was just trying help my Dad, I wasn’t trying to be bad, I didn’t understand why they yelled at me, I just needed a big hug, where was my hug! I didn’t get one, and I stopped trying to be a big helper too. Do you think stuff like this makes teenagers lazy?

Well, after a few weeks my parents turned this old house into a really nice home, and I always told people I was a big helper too! But I ditched the fall head first into a basket of sticky wallpaper part of the story, until now that is. To this day whenever I see a round wooden bushel basket, I’m transported right back to the bottom of that stairwell with sticky old wallpaper all over me, and the basket on my head. Funny what we choose to remember, huh?

Most of the students had never heard such an accent yet, (President Kennedy where are you?), and took no time in mocking my thick accent, and sounding far worse than I could ever do on my own. Of course, the laughter was always at my expense, young pre-teenagers will be the cruelest species on earth anyway!

One day after few months in attendance at the school, and after some of the newness of my accent wore off, I did the unforgivable, I fell-back on my thickest accent ever. It was in a seventh grade Biology class, or at least a section of a class dealing with that subject. Our teacher liked to call upon students that looked like they were not paying attention, or perhaps had a glazed expression in their eyes. Guess who’s turn it was for that call, yup, you’re right, me! Apparently, we were studying animals from the sea at the time. The subject being discussed at that moment was the nature of the little male sea-horses ability to protect its young. I found the subject fascinating, and was really paying attention, but just must have day dreamed for a few catch worthy seconds. And there it was, Alfred, would you please tell us what you’ve learned about this little animal?

Well, I could, like I said, it’s a fascinating animal, however, I just blocked on its name. See that was probably part of the not paying attention at 100%, or just getting tongue-tied for a moment. So I started my recall of what I learnt about the animal, down to the last little detail, and it amazed the teacher, I’m sure of that! All but the part of what the little animal was call, what was its name Alfred?

Doggone it, what was that name, all I could come up with was a little New England description, “you know, it’s a hoss fish!” It took a devastating five minutes for the teacher and thirty classmates to stop the laughing. I thought the teacher was going to bust a gut laughing, he couldn’t even stand up, he was laughing so hard. That made the class laugh even louder and longer too! All but one person got the joke, me! What in the heck was so funny about a little hoss fish? After the laughter settled down, my teacher offered its name for me, sea-horse. I’m thinking, sea hoss, hoss fish what’s the big difference anyway?

It’s only fair to tell that my teacher did offer an apology, explaining that my choice of words was very funny to them, and how I pronounced the word horse triggered the laughter. However, I really didn’t get what was wrong with how I pronounced the word hoss anyway.

I was in the fourth grade and eight years old when I got my first pair of eye-glasses; it was the first time I saw anything the way it really looked! And, that was when I got my new nickname, Four Eyes.

I think perhaps a derogatory name, but I was so excited to see a whole new world. Well, I guess you might have guessed by now, I was extremely myopic; I could see things pretty good if it was really close to me, that’s what nearsighted people can do best. Anything beyond four feet, was either blurry, or non-existent.

I loved our weekend trips in the country or best when we headed to the beach for the day. I looked out the car rear window and saw everything as a moving blur, that’s what I knew to expect when the world was passing by. I never suspected there was more or that something was missing, it had been that way my whole eight years on the planet. My parents had no reason to suspect something was amiss.

It was at school that finally a teacher suspected I couldn’t see well at all. When it came to where I sat in class, it wasn’t close enough to see the blackboard. Most of the time I would just guess what the teacher wrote on the board. Perhaps it was just a bad day for me or perhaps just tired of not being able to see the blackboard, I barked back at the teacher that I couldn’t make out what was on the blackboard, so I couldn’t answer her question.

My teacher had me swap seats with someone in the first row and then I could barely see the board, but I did see it better. So I got to move my desk a bit closer to the blackboard, and I wasn’t even in trouble at all. You see, troublesome kids sit in the first row, the ones you had to keep in sight at all times.

Another thing my teacher did was get the School Nurse to give me an eye test, boy, did I ever flunk that test! What wall chart? What letters? I couldn’t even see the really big letters at the top of the chart! Next stop a real Eye Doctor and my first exam, yup I needed some pretty thick glasses, the four-eyes kind.

It wasn’t long at all and I got my first pair of eyeglasses, all I can remember is the word WOW! There was a whole new world outside of my four-foot reference, nothing was blurry anymore, everything in my world had to be re-identified and redefined. It was a labor of new-found love for me; it was fun teaching my brain that a big blurry blob of green was a tree with leaves that I could actually see.

Unfortunately for my parents, our Sunday trips through country roads to the beach, now became opportunities for me to shout out everything I could now see out the window. I was in rare form when Fall arrived and the trees became a riot of colors, after all, I was living in New England at the time, and it’s the place to be for Fall colors. Prior to my four eyes status, all the colors merged into a warm tan hue, I never saw leaves, just blurry masses of trees.

I remember one wonderful trip when the trees were in 100% Fall color, I just couldn’t contain myself. I pointed out every brightly colored red, orange, yellow tree I saw, and I might say with great glee in my voice. Only to be rebuked with yes we know, the trees are pretty, they are always pretty, now be quiet! We don’t want to hear you again for the rest of our drive. Oh the pain of it all! No one cared, no one cared at all! I cared, it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my whole life, how could you not be moved by its beauty?

To this day, I still point out the beautiful trees in full color to anyone who will listen, in fact I even point them out to myself. Now that’s a beautiful tree, I’d say, and I’d be the only one in the car sometimes!

Well, my eyes have gotten better over the years, it’s what nearsighted people can expect. My heavy four eyes glasses are very thin and light now, and sometimes I can see the trees even without my glasses. I like to think it was a gift from Nature herself for loving and supporting her lovely trees for so many years!

It was the Post-War Forties, and how fun it was to ride the Swan Boats.

I wish I could remember exactly about the Swan Boat ride in the Boston Commons Lake; in my mind we could rent smaller peddle boats for a cruise around the beautiful lake. However, as I search for information and images of this, I find that they are/where passenger boats with park bench-like seating, and someone else does the piloting. It seems so passive, not as I recall it to be, not as I could have been much help either with the peddling at four or five I guess!

I promise myself to investigate and report back to this post when I can clear it up.

I remember the time that I went out in -50 degree weather to shovel the snow off my sidewalk.

I had just ice-picked off the several layers of ice that accumulated on my sidewalk from the house to where my parked car was on the street. (Much like the image above, although not my car.) We had a warm Chinook wind during an early morning hour that melted the snow just about every where, including under the tires of my big old heavy Buick sedan. However, by about six in the morning it froze again into the thickest ice this side of a glacier! Needless to say two feet of ice buried the car, and stayed that way for over a month! But I digress, I was in my home office looking out the window enjoying the view of a freshly de-iced sidewalk, when all of a sudden it started to rain down ginormous flakes of snow, you know, the kind that can build a cover in about two minutes flat. I thought I should get that walk shoveled as soon as possible, maybe as soon as it stops snowing.

I waited an hour or two and it stopped snowing and it was very white and very quiet outside, one of the best things about living in the North West in the winter, (the only thing too!) I bundled up with heavy clothing and snow boots, and headed out to clear that thirty foot sidewalk of freshly lain snow. I started at the door and worked my way down to about ten feet and I heard this funny sounding creak, sort of, kerrreeeeekkk that ended on a loud high note. In fact, I heard it a couple of times in the ridiculously quite air before I noticed that my shoveling arm was getting hard to move, actually, in a few more seconds it did stop moving! I was freezing alive, my body was reacting to the extreme cold. The next thing I noticed was my toes were tingling, and not in a good way! I realized now that this was not good, and maybe a moment too late at that too!
Here I was only about ten feet or so done with at least twenty feet to go and I had to quit, damn! I’m going to get another icy sidewalk again, and I really don’t want it, what to do, what to do. I’ll tell you what, I got my ass inside as fast as my frozen limbs allowed, and that was not very fast. By now my legs were freezing up too.

When I was back inside, a trip that seemed to take forever, my whole body was getting into that state of tingle numbness, (think of what your mouth feels like when the Novocaine begins to wear off after a trip to a dentist). Now I was starting to worry that I might have frostbitten my toes and fingers, hey, I need those, I can’t have them turn black and fall off!

When I thawed out and was back in my office, I was listening to the radio and a news bulletin interrupted the music, they said “Not to go out-of-doors,” you see it had reach fifty below zero, without a wind chill factor, and that would have made it even colder feeling!

I discovered something new while living in Montana in the winter, cold is cold, whether it’s ten degrees below zero or fifty degrees below zero; you just don’t live as long at fifty degrees below zero, that’s all! I consider this a life lesson well learned; I got my ass out of Montana and back to sunny California as soon as I earned my Masters Degree at Montana State University! Amen!

Gun big as a cannon!

Back when I was a young college student, and working as a grocery store clerk, I got robbed at gun point at my check-out counter. I had been working for the five Carlino brothers who owned the Time Market on West San Carlos Street in San Jose, CA, which is a whole story by itself, and might be written too when I get in a nasty mood.

It was near the end of the day, almost closing time and I had only three customers in my line. I was the only one working the registers at the time; the son of one of the brothers was in charge and doing some work on the floor to get ready for the morning shift when the brothers would be working again. I was doing some friendly chatting with all three customers in line, typical of me most of the time when I’m with customers. I finished with the first two customers and then it’s the last guy in line. After I finished ringing up his purchases, I noticed that he had a gun in his hand under his jacket, and in my friendly little way, I joked with him about him finding some kids toy gun on the floor, and wondered what he was going to do with it. That got answered pretty quick! He pointed the gun up into my face, I could see bullets in the chamber of the 22 caliber gun. He said to bag up all the paper money in the draw and anything I had hidden under the cash drawer and stick it inside of the grocery bag I just filled. I laughed at him and told him it was a good joke and then told him how much his order had come to and that it was time for me to go home, that I had some cramming to do for an exam in the morning. But he stuck to his story and said he wasn’t impressed with my comments and if I wanted to live long enough to cram for an exam, I better do what he said. And then he decided that maybe I better open the store safe in the cement floor up front. Well that was out of my hands, I was not given permission to access the safe ever, that was only for family. I told him so, and he told me to call for the other guy to open it.

I called him up front and explained what was going on, he got real nervous and kind of excited, and not in a good way. I figured he knew what his father and/or uncles would say in the morning. He opened all of the registers and emptied all the cash into the grocery bag guy was carrying. He also explained that the safe only had a slot to slide envelopes into and that his dad was the only one who could open it in the morning, that there was an alarm set until then. Could be the truth, I’ll never know or care at this point. What I did care about was what happened next.

He told us that his partner had been watching us from outside and he had a gun too, that we better do what he tells us to do, or else! He told the two of us to go into the back of the store and get inside the meat locker, now that was going to be cold, especially if he locks us inside there. But the worst part for me was that real long walk to the back room locker. I had seen him for over 20 minutes now, joked with him, rang up his purchases, I know exactly what he looks like, sounds like, down to what he was wearing, he was at one time just inches from my face! What was he thinking about doing to me, I could recognize him and nail him for the hold-up! I knew one thing, I didn’t want him to hit me on the head with the gun, please don’t knock me out, I’ve got a big test in the morning!

Well, I didn’t get hit and we didn’t stay in the meat locker more than five minutes before seeing if he/they had left the store. Of course, he was long gone, car, truck or foot, who knew or cared now, we were glad that we came through it okay. Well….

Not so fast there Bucky, there’s more, you don’t get involved in a hold-up without some police work too! There goes my cram-time I guess. I spent until four in the morning at the police station, that’s from around eleven at night before. I must have looked at a million mug shots before I found him, but find him I did! Rat bastard! Thanks to him, two winks of sleep before the exam! Funny, I remember everything but what the course and exam was about, or what I earned on the exam, all I remember was that I did make it to class.

A few months later, I was working for another grocery store a few blocks away, and I’ll be damned, if that rat didn’t pull another heist on this store too! This time I nailed him again in record time in the San Jose Police Department, I’ve got a good memory for faces, especially rat bastards like him!

You probably noticed that I said I was working for another market, this time it was for Mayfair Markets when they were in Northern California. The reason for the change came from the five brothers accusing me of some complicity in the hold-up, after all I joked around with him so he must have been a friend of mine! Are you serious! I was furious with them, my parents had been great customers of theirs, we shopped there for years, that’s how I got the job. Furthermore, why would I have nailed the guy at the police station if I’m involved? These brothers were from another planet, had to be! I could say more but I feel my blood pressure rising fifty years later, enough!

A trip to Boston was not a trip until we saw the billboard that blew perfect smoke rings constantly.

I’m not really sure exactly what I was thinking about when I remembered the smoking billboard sign while I was gathering my thoughts to write about; I was so young when I saw it, however, it make such a big impression! How could a billboard sign smoke? And, how did it blow such perfect smoke rings? Such a mystery that it remains embedded into my brain until today. How fun it was to see, how boring it must have been for my parents to have to seek out this billboard each time we visited Boston! After all, it wasn’t a trip to Boston if we didn’t see this truly remarkable happening. Now if I’m not mistaken, it’s a good bet that we probably nagged them to death until we got to see it again. That part, I can’t really remember, I’d hate to think we would have done that to them, but, kids are kids, and we were kids!

During the years that I smoked cigarettes, (not Camels though), I tried my damnedest to blow smoke rings, never got anywhere close to what looked like one though. Fortunately for me, I quit smoking long before I had a chance to learn how to blow a perfect Camel Smoke Ring, just like the billboard in Boston, therefore, it’s still a mystery to me.

Mrs. Di Cola was our landlady and watched over us for our parents, when we came home from school. An hour later, we got picked up by our Grandfather and delivered to our parents business in Saratoga, until we could all come home together.

I’ll back-up in time for a moment to introduce this lovely woman. When we first arrived in San Jose, California, the real main city of what was then called the Santa Clara Valley, (today it’s known as Silicon Valley), finding an apartment that accepted kids was rare. San Jose was a small city of maybe 85,000 back in 1951. All of our parents plans for finding a suitable settlement home were upset by this simple fact, moving with kids was not a good idea when there were no helpful laws to protect families from this sort of infringement or right to find a home. Fortunately, today’s laws prevent this sort of behavior.

My father scoured the city for a suitable home for his family while my mother watched over us at an Aunt and Uncles apartment in Santa Clara. We rented a motel room close by to have a place to sleep during the interim. In a couple of days, Dad found, and was really in love with a Spanish style two-story private home in San Jose with a For Rent sign. It had a complete two-bedroom apartment upstairs with a full kitchen and bathroom, and a really nice dining room and living room plus two private entrances too; plus it was super-clean and freshly painted, no wonder he was in love with this place.

Now with a pen-in-hand, ready to sign the lease with Mr. and Mrs. Di Cola, he mentioned how much his two kids will love such a lovely home; and that his little girl would only have to cross one rarely used street to go to school, which conveniently was right next door. Dad told us later how badly the landlords took this news; they invited him to leave with the idea of not living there, they were too old to deal with children running around upstairs. Well, personally now sixty years later, I can understand their concerns.

Well, Dad took the reins-in-hand and guaranteed his kids were very well-behaved and they would never hear a peep from us, besides, after school we would be transported to another place until all of us were back home together. He even offered to post a large sum of money, (I think $100 dollars), they could keep if they ever heard a peep from us.

He let them sleep on his suggestions for a day so he could discuss it with Mom, however, he really didn’t want to lose this place. Dad was a good negotiator, they agreed for a month, but if they didn’t like what was going on, out we’d go! Dad also warned us that what the terms were and there would be hell to pay if we let him down. We didn’t, we loved the house, and even helped our parents by keeping it clean and uncluttered too, while we waited for our ride after school.

Mom got along with Mrs. Di Cola very well, two Italians, what’s not to believe about this? Funny, I remember more about this time as I write about it; I haven’t thought about any of this in decades. Mom had asked Mrs. Di Cola to just keep an ear opened to when we came home from school, that way she would know we were safely at home and then would dispatch
Grandpa to go and pick us up and take us to their business establishment in Saratoga.

I remember one day when Mom got a call from Mrs. Di Cola that she couldn’t see or hear us after school time and worried that maybe something was wrong. I don’t know why she didn’t come upstairs and check first, we were there. transfixed on some kind of Television program of the day; the volume was down and we weren’t making a peep, per the contract!

Of course, lots of things were put into action, including getting a ride from Grandpa since Mom didn’t drive yet, and heading down to San Jose to find us, I guess she thought the hospital or something worse. All the commotion and we were sitting on the couch quiet as could be. After this, we were allowed to peep! But not too loud, just loud enough.

Poor Mrs. Di Cola was so embarrassed by the unneeded event that she would come and visit us from time-to-time with a bowl of the best tasting sugared walnuts you ever tasted! Just the right amount of sugar and spice, and crispy, I can taste them now thinking about them, and I can guarantee that in the sixty years since then, I have never, ever, tasted any as good as hers!

We were only with the Di Colas’ for one year when our parents bought a home in Saratoga, just blocks away from their business. Mrs. Di Cola devastated by the news, was crying and said that she didn’t want to see us go at all. We kept in touch with them, and then her when she became a widow in the years to follow. We always made sure to visit at least every Christmas, and we knew we’d get some sugared walnuts to treasure, and we’d be back home with her again!