The Ash Creek Papers

I have always found it fun to think about dreams… to dig thru the assorted characters, the misplaced locations and disjointed activities. What does it all mean? I try not to dwell on what it really means. I figure I am crazy enough… I don’t need additional proof.

I just enjoy thinking about the peculiarities and the twists. I like the visits from my parents. It keeps my cherished memories of them fresh… and there is that nano second in the morning upon getting up when I think that they are still here.  Still here on this side of the river.

Last night (or was it this morning?) I had a visit from Roland Groves. Actually it was a call… the phone rang, I picked it up (I have no clue where I am) and I hears Roland’s voice… I don’t know if the call was intentional… maybe he misdialed? Or perhaps I picked up the phone on someone else’s call, and overheard the conversation?

But as sure as God made green apples, it was Roland Groves’ voice, and he was talking about his daughter Leslie’s wedding.

Roland Groves was one of three brothers who worked for us at Chipp. Besides Roland, there was Monty Graham & Harland McPhun… same mother, different fathers. They hailed from Costa Rica and they began working for my father at Chipp in the mid 50s. Harland worked in the stock room. Monty worked our customer “pick-up desk” (he had other responsibilities as well… I just forget them).

Roland became our “cutter.”  Doesn’t sound glamorous does it? But let me assure it is definitely an art form. The backbone of our business was custom tailoring… each customer had his own paper pattern (drafted by our custom designer). And with each ordered suit, jacket or trousers his paper pattern would be laid over the cloth and cut… the art came into making sure the stripes and plaids matched… and then it was a matter of pride that would require the correct placing of the pieces of paper to utilize a minimum amount of cloth.

Cutter… this is a trade. Roland went to “school” to learn the fundamentals, and then “apprenticed” to Bill Gorga in our shop. And Roland worked for us ’til about 1994… I am embarrassed to say I can’t be more specific about the date.

I know few men who had more pride than Roland. His appearance alone spoke to that. Tweed sport coats, or blazers… sure. Simple slacks. Nice shirts that in his later years needed to conceal an increasing tummy. But what set Roland apart was the silk foulard pocket square that was correctly thrust into his breast pocket. And with that pocket square he looked better than 90% of the people I saw on a day to day basis. One more thing… when he left at day’s end, he was sure to splash on some aftershave or cologne that we had on our counter.

His wife, whose name I can’t summon from the memory banks, worked as a nurse. And their hours flip-flopped. He worked days. She worked nights.

And there were the stories.  He was having an affair with our “finisher” Rosalie Corsi… a sad story there, too. Rosalie was not only a victim of abuse as a child… she had a husband who ended up sleeping with her mother. Nice stuff, and you thought this only happened in tabloids or on Jerry Springer. Anyway… I thought Rosalie was terrific, I adored her… and I could not begrudge her a small portion of happiness. So Roland and Rosalie playing “kissy face & pressy bod”? Rumor? I just saw them being tender to one another in the hall one day. Was there more? I do not know. But I think there was a mitzvah there.

The Groves’ had one child… a daughter Leslie. And how is this?  The core of Chipp clientele came from the WASP Aristocracy… they went to prep schools like Hotchkiss, Andover & Exeter… and then to Yale, Dartmouth & Williams. And so Leslie, studying hard at her school in Brooklyn, gets a scholarship first to St. Paul’s, and then to Brown.

Yes, I know few prouder men than Roland Groves.

And sadly when pressures in business proved insurmountable, we could no longer justify keeping Roland on our payroll. There are those who said that we carried Roland for several years longer than we had any business doing. Yes, from a business sense it did not make sense to retain him; but from a human sense it hurt to cut a person adrift… someone who had worked for us for some 40 years… first for my father, then for Paul and me.

What is business all about anyway?

I bumped into Roland a several months after we cut him loose… we chatted a bit on the street. I didn’t know what to say… how could I adequately convey how terrible I still felt about letting him go. It was an awkward moment. And Roland, wearing a green blazer, sunglasses against the brightness of the sun that was pouring down the defile of 43rd Street… and the ever present silk foulard pocket square… held my arm, smiled and said, “Hey, Jimmy… it’s OK”.

Thanks for the call Roland. I wish you, Mrs. Groves & Leslie all the happiness in world. Ask Leslie to save me a dance… I love dancing with brides… here, or on the other side of the river.

This morning I made it to Calf Pasture Beach just before the sun came up. But the stage direction couldn’t have been better… just as I got to the end of the pier the sun winked itself awake and inched above the horizon, first the barest of slivers & then a proud orange disc.

The water lay flat… only a few birds to be seen, and even fewer boats making their way into the Sound… and I thought about yesterday’s New York Times Magazine Section. The last Sunday of the year the Issue is given over to recalling the lives of some notables who have died over the past year. The editors call attention to the selection to those who are not featured… Bob Hope not featured; but the woman (I forget her name) who served as the “manager” of the pro-wrestler Randy Savage was featured. Anyway… curious stuff. And I find the writing in the Bios to be uniformly good and enlightening in their approach.

And I wonder what the editors would do with the pastiche presented this morning. A car crashes into a home at 1:00AM in Union, NJ killing 3… the toll of deaths in California mudslide reached 14… and then this: 20,000 people died in the quake that struck in Iran… the latter is “old news” actually, the disaster occurring on Friday — the day after Christmas. There were secondary tremors as well and it seems that the toll will rise further.

20,000 souls. Numbing. Is it easier to deal with the larger loss of life than the smaller and closer loss of life? And yet there are stories for each and every one of those who have lost their life in that earthquake… each had parents, siblings and friends… most were probably poor, and for many, they probably did not even know that they were poor. But their lives were precious.

Too easy to take our lives and those who we love for granted. Too easy to not be thankful for the blessings that we enjoy everyday.

The beautiful sun is shinning over the Sound. What can be so bad?

HAPPY & HEALTHY NEW YEAR

qui fuerunt sed nunc ad astra

For as long as I can remember I have been a “morning person”. Among my chums I was the only one who tried to engineer his class schedule to get 8:30s. And it was during the spring of my sophomore year that I discovered the beauty of the dawn.

It happened this way… I was taking an introductory graphics course with Arnie Bittleman, who in a previous life, had a part time job as a butcher while finishing his Art Degree at Yale. He should have remained a butcher. With little or no encouragement from him I began my love & exploration of photography. And on an early spring morning back in New Haven, I lured my next door neighbor, David Kimberly, to the beach in Woodmont to capture the rising sun in black & white… back then I thought that black & white was “serious” photography, and colour was frivolous.

David agreed to tag along, looking at it as an opportunity for poetic inspiration. Good thought Dave… even I tried to compose a verse or two to go along with my photography.

Sadly, nothing remains of that mornings creative output save my memory of the morning; and more importantly my continuing love of the dawn.

Whether it was the early sky that I saw as the train moved thru Harlem all those years in commuting to New York… or today, the road traveled to Norwalk and my morning workout, or perhaps the detour to the Calf Pasture beach… there isn’t a day that I don’t enjoy seeing & feeling the quietness of the dawn & of life slowly coming awake. First a few stragglers… the odd deer looking for some breakfast, a car speeding to the City, an early “walker”, a dog sniffing about… a few more souls stirring to the early calls.

I have a particular fondness for breakfast places. The 24 hour Diners are natural starting places for the early risers. At my spot you can see “layers” of folks… first it is the truck guys — delivery people, utility guys, Dept of Public works. Next come the Cops. Then the contract tradesmen — painters, plumbers & electricians. And so it goes. Each layer starting their day at a slightly different hour; but all still rather early.

“Convenience Stores” are also a natural starting point. Places to pick up the morning paper, a pack of cigarettes, a lottery ticket and the like.

But it is the gas stations and their convenience stores that are the most fascinating to me… it is here that the “seasonal” workers gather to begin their day. Trucks are lined up, their backs filled with what is appropriate to the time of the year. For most of the year it is lawn stuff… mowers, trimmers and the ever present gas cans. In the fall we have leaf blowers and vacuums… and some of the trucks are fitted out with those contraptions that look like elephants’ trunks. Winter and it’s snow removal time.

The cast of characters does not change. You see the same faces. Men from “south of the border”. Talk to people who are Hispanic and they can tell you just by appearance where other Hispanics are from. I am not that good; but I am guessing that most of the folks I see are either from Central America, or maybe Peru or Ecuador. They have carmel coloured complexions peeking out below a 2 or 3 day growth of beard.

Now that we have moved to cooler weather, they wear layers of clothing… two or three shirts, a sweat shirt, a vest… dirty pants, two pair of socks and heavy work shoes.

One worker stays with the truck… filling the tank, and of course filling the gas cans, too. The others pile into the “store” to stock up. I love looking at what they consider essential for their day… coffee is a must, then a cold drink (carbonated or non-carbonated) for later, bottled water, too (I can never understand why people buy water in plastic bottles), some type of chips — corn chips, potato chips, pretzels… also gum, candy, & a cupcake of some type — twinkies, snowballs, devil dogs… rarely some will purchase a lottery ticket, or a pack of smokes.

Each worker has no less than 6 things that he is purchasing… plus someone is responsible for bringing a “goodie bag” for the guy who remained with the truck.

I think it was Zack who told me about “three across”. It seems to be emblematic of the way these workers drive around town. And sometimes it’s “four across”.

The filling of the tanks is done. The ritual purchases have been taken care of. Now it’s time to jam into the cabs of the trucks.

Three in the front, the trucks cough to life, blowers and mowers secured in the back… perhaps a fourth or fifth worker is in the back, and if so, be assured that it is a pecking order issue. And their day to begin…

The sun not quite above the tree line. A tinge to the air and I am surprised to see a lone sea gull circling over head… just as it was 34 years ago.

********************

I never tire of the early morning. I think that there is a kernel of hope in the start of each day. And I have come to treasure the line from Shawshank Redemption…“Hope is a good thing”.

I go to the gym just about every day & as long as my wheels are in working order I will run between 5 and 11 miles on a treadmill. A while ago I discovered it helped maintain my energy level, and maybe, more importantly… it helped with anger management and to knock out the hurts (physical or emotional) that I pick up along the way.

To help us cardio freaks out, gyms typically have a bank of TV monitors tuned to the key stations… CNN, ESPN & others that I don’t recognize. The sound is off; but some of the sets have “closed captioning” so we can follow the text of what’s being said.

This morning I caught a piece on Jim Valvano… or I think it was him. He was a basketball coach I think at NC State when they won the National Title… before then he may have been the coach at Providence… and maybe he coached for another team, too. If I am not mistaken he recently (within the last 10 years?) died… cancer? Anyway… I will have to check the facts with Zack.

Some Coaches are known for being great motivators (maybe it is what makes them great coaches, and not merely good coaches). Some are also quite well read and articulate & these latter skills prove useful on the “speech circuit”. Long after they put the play books aside, hang up the whistle & pack away their sneakers they can continue to share their insights with interested folks.

This morning I followed a speech that Valvano had made some time before his death; but after he learned that he was terminal…

He put 3 keys to life…

“Every day… laugh.”

“Every day… think. Spend some time in thought”

“Every day… experience something that will bring your emotional level to tears.”

And then he concluded… “Don’t Give Up”.