Wave to Uncle Ron (Written January 29, 2011)

Retired in Delaware found himself visited by the Black Dog of Depression the other day. That can be almost as bad as being hounded by the Hounds of the Baskervilles I understand. Such beasts have tracked down The Little Woman many times in her life. It isn't a pleasant thing.

Ron seems to be recruiting cats to hiss and claw away the Black Dog, so here is another cat trying to cheer him up.

This little guy, Kerouac (yes, named for the "Beat" writer), a few months ago was on the road himself. Do not know his history, but my son and his co-workers found this tiny kitten huddled beneath the carts outside their store.

He had apparently been hiding out there a couple days. My son brought him home and here he is.

 If he wasn't here, he would have probably died, either from starvation, because he was skinny and famished when we took him in, or run over by the many cars in the parking lot of that mall.

He is the cutest little rascal, who nows likes to sleep in the crook of my arm when he isn't finding something new to play with.

Last year about this same time in similar conditions, that is much, much snow, this other cat showed up here. He was the opposite of Kerouac, being very large and black. Where he came from we do not know either and we assumed for a long time he was feral, but it turned out he wasn't. We were putting out food for him through two blizzards and the entire winter, finally luring him close that May. Now he is not out in that stuff this year, but cozy and warm and happy to snooze in a bed too small.

He had headed to this bed when we took him in and I guess he considers it his and compared to sleeping beneath a house in freezing weather, who cares if it is a bit snug.

The cat in the new Profile Picture is Mark. Mark came here (just for overnight) five years ago when he was a kitten. My middle daughter brought him home. He had been found wandering the road in front of St. Marks High School by a shelter worker, who rescued him and brought him to the shelter. My daughter, also a shelter worker, brought him home because there was no room for him at the inn. "Just overnight," she said. Mark made a beeline for my chest as I lay watching TV and nuzzled up against my chin. So much for this just overnight nonsense.

Cats always know who the big softie is.

Every Great Comic Trio Needs a Larry

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."


So posited William Shakespeare in Act II, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet.  (I know, I know, the picture is from MacBeth, not Romeo and Juliet. I'll explain later, show some patience. I wonder why the witch on the right looks more like a pirate than a witch?)


"What indeed?" might ask Wild Bill Shakespeare aka The Kid aka Frantic Frank aka The Barber aka Hearse [or was he Gravely] aka Larry.

Yes, The Kid was blessed with the first name of Larry, and that was it, no Lawrence, Lorenzo or Lorenz. This being named essentially a nickname was to give The Kid some problems when he got into school and roll call was taken. Sometimes on the first of these daily routines the roll call would slip into an Abbott and Costello routine.


Pretend Bud Abbott on the left is a teacher and Lou Costello on the right is The Kid. Here is how roll call once went (honest).


Teacher: Lawrence Kid?


The Kid: Here. But it's Larry


Teacher: Yes, but your given name is Lawrence.


The Kid: No, it's Larry

Teacher: No, it's Lawrence now isn't it?


The Kid: No, it's Larry.


Teacher: I will call you Larry if you prefer, but for the record I have to have your proper full name. I am sure that is Lawrence.


The Kid: No, it's Larry.


Teacher: Your parent's did not name you Larry.


The Kid: I know what my own name is.


Teacher: Then what is your full name?


The Kid: Larry The Kid!


Teacher:  Okay, okay. What is your father's occupation? (What this had to do with roll call The Kid doesn't know, but the Teacher did ask.)


The Kid: Transit Expediting Engineer.


Teacher: What?


The Kid: A truck driver.


[The photo is of Larry Fine as a mural over a restaurant on Philadelphia's South Street near where he was born.] 


The "Larry isn't your given name" played over and over from class to class, although not as extensively as it did with that one teacher. Most were willing to except the truth more readily, but that one teacher never wanted to accept The Kid as just plain Larry.


The teacher wasn't a male, she was a woman and we will call her Ms Hurl, because she always made me want to. I had her way too often. Besides homeroom, I had her for English and one day out of a clear blue sky she began a lecture thus: "There is something ignorant about parents who would give their child a name ending in Y. The Y on the end of the name makes it a diminutive. Billy means Little Bill, Johnny means Little John, Timmy means Little Tim. Foolish parents who gives their child such a name causes that child to think of them self as little or insignificant."


Whether The Kid ever felt insignificant because of his name I would say not, but perhaps these silly confrontations honed his sense of the absurdities of life and led him into comedic roles in high school.


Now The Kid had some encouragement about his writing ambitions from the adult world, but not many. Certainly there was none from his parents, who felt this writing thing was on par with a child saying he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. Their view was it would pass with age and eventually The Kid would set my sights on a "real job".  There were some, though, such as his Third Grade teacher Miss. Ezra and the young librarian in town, who allowed him to use the library typewriter and critiqued his tales. It definitely wasn't the state guidance councilors who came to the school and told him he didn't have the vocabulary to be a writer; he should consider running a machine instead. They never specified what kind of machine. He did not have anyone you could call a mentor until his senior year and Mrs. M. opened up his words to a wider world.


Some of this late school success came as a single. He was given two public readings of his work, one of poetry and one of his short stories. Since most of this fiction was of the horror genre, he acquired a new nickname, Frank, short for Frankenstein, for he was a creator of his own little monsters. 

Perhaps this nickname led him to create the character, "Frantic Frank," the somewhat spaced-out musician persona he adopted for his stand-up routines. Yes, The Kid did stand-up comedy at his school and some other venues. That is Frantic Frank to the right. Little did The Kid suspect this was a vision of the future as far as the top of his head and his chinny-chin-chin were concerned, although both his fringes would be gray rather than dark in that distant future when The Old Goat appeared.


Actually, The Kid had appeared on stage as another comic character before "Frantic". It was that appearance that led to the opportunity to be "Frantic Frank" and it was an appearance engineered by Mrs. M. She asked him to write a comic assembly explaining Shakespeare. This piece became "Shakespeare and the Theatre" and was performed twice at the school. The three witches at the top of this page were from that assembly, although they were in a bit on Macbeth separate from The Kid's portion. The Kid appeared in the play as narrator and host, "Wild Bill Shakespeare". The success of "Shakespeare and the Theatre" resulted in a request from another teacher for The Kid to write a comic piece for an evening performance at the school, and so jazz trumpeter "Frantic Frank" was born to explain "musick".

But perhaps The Kid's biggest triumphs in high school came when he worked with two others as a trio, and as we know, every great comic trio needs a Larry.


Now The Kid had worked with collaborators before in his short literary career. In Sixth Grade he and his good friend Stu had published and sold a newspaper. Stu and he had also written some songs together, mostly humorous. And later in his teens, The Kid and Rich, his friend from up the road, had written several funny skits and interviews together using a tape recorder. So working with others was not new to the Kid.


It was somewhat new how he met his collaborators this time, though.


There were two, of course, this being a trio. There was Ray and there was Richard Ray and yes it can get confusing. The Kid had his friend Rich and his friend Ray and his friend Richard Ray and his long time friend Ron. When it came to friends, he was ready for some R & R...and R & R.


This triumvirate began before The Kid's senior year and was unusual because he was approached by someone not an outsider. Or was he? 


The Kid was the new boy in school and came with some trepidation after his experiences in the town where he had come from. He did not run into the harassment he had suffered before, but he did not make friends at the new school easily that first year, until some time in the spring when along came Ray. Ray was not someone The Kid would expect to sit down and break bread with in those days. Ray wasn't down there in The Kid's strata; Ray was up in the major leagues.


Although The Kid had improved in some sports, especially baseball, he was a long way from a major athlete. He was a good running back in pickup football games now and he seemed to have an odd ability in sports requiring hitting something over a net. He had finished in the finalists in a Ping Pong tournament back at his old school and he was a fierce volleyball and badminton player. He was also becoming fair at tennis. Basketball continued to elude him as did many of the type of things rolled out for indoor Gym. Apparatus was more likely to conquer him than the other way around.


One day, after bumbling something in Gym enough to draw laughs, The Kid was feeling a bit down. This Ray came up to him and told him not to take it so hard. Then Ray began giving The kid some advice on how to improve in whatever it was. After that day they became fast friends who were always together at school. How, The Kid wondered did this happen? Ray was on the A list, The Kid was somewhere around List Q at best.


Ray was on the A list quite literally; he tended to be a straight A student. He was well behaved and he did his homework, therefore the teachers liked him. This is usually anathema for a teenager with his peers, but in this case — not the case. Perhaps this was because Ray was a four letterman, excelling in every type of sport he decided to attempt.


[Now I must pause and give some explanation because of the passage of years and of generations. In my day and before it, when a person was said to be a three or four letterman it was a compliment. It meant the person was an excellent, outstanding high school or college athlete. A person would be awarded a "letter" if they met certain criteria in sports. The person would wear a letter sweater, which he might give to his sweetheart if they became pinned; that is a steady couple. Now I find in street slang today that the term "three or four letterman" is a derogatory one, evidently originated within the Navy, to mean a Gay man. They use "three letterman" as code for "Fag" and "four letterman" as code for "Homo".]


Ray, although only about five foot six, starred in basketball and track. He was an all-around in track, he ran the dash, the mile, did the pole vault and threw the javelin. He was a champion wrestler and the star of the Gym show, featured on the horizontal bar and the rings. But in one way he was an outsider. He had also been an outstanding football player, but he quit the team on principle. There were a few guys who threatened him for quitting the team, but nothing ever came of the threats. Heck, even the Greasers left Ray alone. He could handle himself.

And the girls loved him. He was cute. 


But for some reason Ray decided to befriend The Kid.


They shared a sense of humor. They found ways to get out of study halls and go to a place in the school where they could listen to Tom Lerher records. Soon they joined with Ray Richard as the three-headed class clown.


Before they became a writing, performing trio with Richard Ray, The Kid and Ray became a duo as DJs at school dances, introducing songs, telling jokes and prodding the shy boys to ask the wallflowers to dance. They parodied the name of a popular television team named Grady and Hurst, who did a Bandstand type show from Wildwood at the New Jersey shore each summer. The Kid and Ray became "Gravely and Hearse". It is no longer clear which was which, but maybe it didn't matter. Maybe they switched names occasionally as all part of the fun.

No matter, eventually the three boys joined up to write and perform comic sketches in the school's variety show.  There they were selling French perfume in the aisles or baffooning it up as The Barber, The Boy and The Man on stage, Richard Ray doing a strange striptease, The Kid slicing off Ray's phony ears with hedge clippers; Richard Ray breaking into an impromptu Polka, Ray slapping people around for trying to steal his giant lollypop and The Kid during a pratfall off the stage into the audience. 


There they were Larry and his partner Ray and his other partner Ray.


There they were The Three Students, Ray, Larry and Richard Ray.


There they were Ray, Richard Ray and Larry gittin' 'er done.


Because every great comic trio has to have a Larry.

A Lady of Influence

I would like to say a few words about a lady who profoundly influenced my life, although I didn't know it at the time. She is not one who gained fame so outside a certain circle within a small geographic region, she would not be known. Most of the people who truly influenced me fit such a description. Such people are too often lost in the glare of the superficial star of the moment, some Hollywood heartthrob (more likely in these day to be a L.A. train wreck) or a money magnate - a golden idol building towers to himself; even perhaps a politician riding a mount named charisma.

It is not to say people of fame and wealth are necessarily bad and cannot offer good example to us. It is just that glamour, glitz and gilt may cover a lack of character and blind us to what we might have to give up of our soul to be such.

Yet we can find influence in plain wrappers if we would put on sunglasses against the glitter that emanates from the TV tube or movie screen.

Such is Elizabeth Ezra.

Who?

Exactly, who?

Miss Ezra was my third grade teacher and if not for her I might not be writing this Blog today. I was the new kid in the class, joining it after Christmas break in January 1950. It was at this time, in this class, I met and befriended two people who remain my friends still, although at a distance, one in Florida and one in Lower Delaware (the one who writes the Retired in Delaware Blog I mentioned previously.) They too feel influenced by Miss Ezra. I have learned that many feel this way.

Miss Ezra standing behind The Kid, 1950
In third grade she challenged the class to write a short story. She praised my story, put it up on the wall for the world to see and this was the first of few moments I shown in those early years, and I believe this was the seed that grew into a vine entangling my life. I can't say if it produced a garden or a weed patch, but it certainly made me a cultivator of words my whole life.

Miss Ezra never married. Her students were her children and her life. She was a quiet woman, a humble woman and is still. She turned 101 late last year.
Miss Ezra now and then.


My friend, the one in Lower Delaware, and I visited her a couple years back and she was still spry and cognizant. She walks through town each day and is much the gracious teacher she will always be.
My friend Ron and Miss Ezra at her home


I would hope we all have a Miss Ezra in our life, but more importantly, may we all be someone else's Miss Ezra.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.Proverbs 22:6

1 comments:

Ron said:

A wonderful thoughtful tribute to a kind and gracious lady. We were very lucky to have such a wonderful woman as our third grade teacher during those important formative years. Miss Ezra celebrated her 101st birthday November 10th at Simpson Meadows Retirement Home in Downingtown, PA. Her health is excellent and she is as sharp as she was 54 years ago.

April 24, 2008 8:29 PM 

Good Deeds Make a Good Chain

Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, "Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow" when you now have it with you. Proverbs 3:27-28

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’"

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Luke 10:25-29

In the photograph above taken Sunday February 7, 2010, the morning after the big storm, you are looking down my street. The photo is taken from in front of my driveway, with me standing in the middle of the street. There remain two houses on my street to the left between the corner and mine. Joe and his family live in the first, where the large black vehicle is at the end of the lane. The next house down, the yellow one, belongs to Ron and his wife.  The green house across the street on the corner belongs to an elderly widow named Leda.

To the other side of my house live Jamie and his family. Across the street is Jim.

So I am outside because my son is going to drive somewhere and I want to make certain he can get out of our drive. As he slowly goes down our hill, I see Ron shoveling at the end of his drive. I haven’t talked to him for a while, so I amble down the street.

As I get closer I see Joe is also there with a shovel. Ron’s SUV is kind of crooked across his drive. He’s stuck.

Well, we did have a bit of snow if you can call 25.2 inches a bit. The street was plowed, but still all white and slick. A car was spinning its wheels trying to come up just a few minutes earlier.

Ron has a reason he wants to get unstuck. He wants to take Leda to the hospital. Yesterday she fell on some ice just outside her door and might have a broken wrist. Ron had seen her slip and went to her aide. He has some paramedic training, so examined her injury, but in the middle of the storm the best he could do was wrap it and come back today to check on her. It was swollen up and turning purple so he wanted to take her to the hospital for an x-ray just to be safe. And that’s when his vehicle got stuck.

Ron’s a bit banged up himself. He has a black eye. He fell asleep watching TV last night, woke up, got up and tripped over a coffee table. He fell headfirst into the fireplace and a poker caught him. Fortunately it just missed his eye but it left him with a beautiful shiner.

Joe had seen Ron get stuck and came down to try and help, so now I joined in the endeavor. Ron was in pretty deep, though and it didn’t look good.

Just when we were about to give it one more try without a lot of faith in a positive outcome, Jamie came up the street in his pickup. He pulled over and said he thought he had a rope in the truck bed; maybe he could pull Ron out.

First he had to borrow a shovel because he had two feet of snow in the truck bed to dig through.

He found the rope and in short time Ron was back on the road. Jamie retrieved his rope and went home. Ron picked up Leda and headed for the hospital. Joe and I finished clearing out Ron’s driveway, although he kept telling us to stop. He felt bad since he wouldn’t be there. But, hey man, you do enough for we neighbors, finishing your drive is nothing.

Sometimes it takes two black guys, one white guy and a Hispanic immigrant to get one widow lady to the hospital, because all that diversity stuff means nothing you know. We’re all one race, the human race, and what really counts we are all neighbors and we look out for each other.

Oh, what about Jim. Well, he wasn’t helping Leda this time, but he cleared her super long sidewalks of snow earlier, just like Joe had cleared mine. Younger neighbors have to help out us older folk occasionally too.

And who knows who will need what this winter. Forecast is calling for another 8 to 16 inches landing on us this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Whoa, Nelly!