Whatever Happened to What's That Place, Whoz It, and Whachacallit...?

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      Whatever Happened to What's That Place, Whoz It and Whachacallit..?


Where the heck's the Marine Bank?  I used to work in that building!  Is it gone?  What about my savings account?  (Maybe I never had one there!?)  And what about County Stadium?  I mean, I call and call, and no one answers!!  I want to purchase ducats for next season!!??

I guess it's all part of GeezerHood...  Longing for stuff and places familiar, things and locations we cherished. Goldmanns?  Is Goldmann's gone too??  I was gonna meet Ernie at the lunch counter for chicken fries and a pork cutlet...  maybe mashed spuds!!  

When I first got out of the military, I got a job as a VeriType operator, and had to buy a new suit from Goldmann's. Cost me maybe $26.00.  Oh, but I got caught in a rain storm getting off the Number 32 bus, and had to walk home.  When I arrived, the suit coulda fit maybe Donald Duck.  Oh well...  I still miss Goldmann's!  And I suppose no one uses a VeriType anymore!  And where do I get my $26.00 suits from, already!!??  No matter....  After about two weeks of VariTyper'ing, I burned my Donald Duck suit and took a job in road construction.  

Anyone seen Schuster's?  My Ma and them liked to shop by Schuster's!!  What's it now?  Lofts? A warehouse?  A bank, maybe a walk-in medical place?  We want it back!!  Oh, what the hell...  gone is gone!  Gimbels?    

Let's get back to County Stadium.  Oh...  Now it's Miller Park, is it?  I hear there's some insurance outfit wants to re-name even Miller Park!  What's it?  Scam Am Park or something?  Flam a-Damma-Ding-Dong Park?  I won't have it!!  I shall begin to refer to the stadium as "Effinger Park."  Maybe see if it'll catch on!!  I grew quite fond of Effinger Beer from Baraboo where Uncle Hackett allegedly regained his health drinking Effinger.  

Oh yeah!  Where the hell did they put Harry Brezhinski's tavern?  Used to be on Fratney and Hadley.  Where'd they put it?  People can't go around removing iconic saloons when one is expecting to stop in for a boomba and a shot of cheap whiskey!!  Something's gone terribly wrong, here!!  

And another thing!  I once had a  crummy but rustic office overlooking North Avenue, next to Farwell.  It also overlooked my favorite drug store and lunch counter...  What did they do with Oriental Drug??!  It's been 15, 20 places since then.  Multiple pizza parlors, and now a food court sort of thing!  Maybe they'll bring it back!?...  Oriental Drugs, I mean!

I suppose the Sport Bowl's gone too, what?  North Avenue and maybe 58th Street?  We used to watch Pat and Joey bowl there.  Although I sometimes complained about the bad carnauba wax they slathered on the alleys, I liked to sit at the bar on in the gallery drinking stubby bottles of Mueller Beer, or maybe shorty Pabst's.  (My own average was maybe 45...  Bowling, I mean!) Where do people go for bowling nowadays?  The Narrow Lane (no reference to the aforementioned bowling parlor, but close by for convenience...!) is also no longer in evidence on North Avenue!  A person turns around and everything familiar is gone!! 

Morry's on Prospect, the Koo Koo Club, Trail's End Lodge, George's Tap...  Meyer's Drug

Store and Lemon Phosphates...   Alright, already!  Maybe it's just GeezerHood and missing stuff, familiar addictions and places we liked to hang out!  Like Stoney Calhoun at that bar on 60th and North Avenue.  He played great country tunes, like Wildwood Flower, even though those were the only words in the whole song!  Oh well, the Oriental Theatre's still there.  The Downer too.  Oh yeah, and Zaffiro's!  We go there every year for our special holiday pizza fix.  It's the best.  Anyone seen or been to a "Ham 'n Egger" lately?

 

Sigh...  Guess it's the bane of those of us in the bosom of robust ("middle-plus-a-little") age.  We revel in former glories, allowing memories and thoughts of past pleasures and adventures to play like newsreels in the reverie of our imaginations.  Truth is, I like and embrace change.  Really!!!  But, no one says one can't float on the magic ship of recollection, sails unfurled, billowing...  

Hey!  Where did I park my '59 Oldsmobile with the moon hubcaps??!!  I better call somebody...  SweetHeart!!!...

Humbly Submitted, 02-26-19 -- Joel K.        

  

Old Friends Renewed... A Sort of Re-Awakening!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     Old Friends Renewed...    A Sort of Re-Awakening! 

Long before entering the depths of Geezerhood (or should it be heights?), in my student days, I read Jean-Paul Sartre's The Wall, in which his protagonist is condemned to death by firing squad against the "eponymous," much-feared wall. The story is set during the Spanish Civil War.  The man is ultimately reprieved for "consideration," temporarily, but not before "surrendering the illusion of immortality."

At least that's one interpretation, admittedly an over-simplification of a classic existentialist narrative.  Nonetheless, it leads nicely into the theme, setting up the topic of this month's attempt at constructing a story!  I think that as we age, we engage in more and more self-reflection, looking behind to consider where we've been, ahead through tunnels of presumptive destinations as they grow ever nearer.  Notions of Mortality, even the "illusion" (we all make future plans, don't we??!!) we all seem to hold on to, creep increasingly into consciousness. I haven't actually "surrendered," but I think about it more often these days...  

I don't know if that's the sole motivation, but in recent years it's the thought of mortality that perhaps moved me to seek out old friends, even after 40 or 50 years' absence.  I'm happy and gratified that I did, and wonder often why I waited so damn long to do so.  Noteworthy among them...  

Freddy and I had been childhood friends.  We had paper routes, played ball in the gravel lot adjacent to his family's garage,

cut lawns, rode our bikes recklessly... had great fun and many adventures.  I'm sitting one day staring a my computer, and the word, "rice-a-floffa" (not sure of the spelling!?) wanders into my head.  I look up Freddy's phone number and ring.  To my delight, he responds happily, enthusiastically, and with a hearty laugh as I begin, "I'd like a large order of rice-a-floffa to travel!" Now we get together for lunch at least once a month.  I was in his wedding many years ago, and attended his and Pat's recent 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration. A renewed friendship...  pure joy!

This famous Milwaukee
custard stand served
equally famous skinless
wieners made by Johnny's
family business...

Johnny B. was one of the first friends I made during freshman year of high school.  Beginning recently, we E-Corresponded, we talked, and now we get together for lunch or dinner, once a month when time and schedules permit.  In our younger days, we prowled around the old neighborhood, "borrowed" his father's car, went to Louie's cottage for boat rides and water skiing.  Now that we're older and far more brilliant, we talk about politics and former bad habits, the Peace Corps, travel and many other topics of significance that great minds crave.

Richard M. and I were in school together, and enjoyed a friendship in the 60's and 70's.  A couple of weeks ago, following some re-introductory E-Messaging, we set a lunch meeting, and caught up, each of us in turn summarizing perhaps 45 or so years since we last saw one another. It was a Great Time! We plan to get together again, sometime after the start of 2017, perhaps even including other mutual old chums...  

Above is a badly-fabricated image of
the fabled saloon, Morry's on Prospect,
where many great friendships were
forged from a crucible of booze,
juke box tunes and good times!!  

Such as...  Mike B.  We met for coffee, sharing recollections of highly amusing if possibly self-destructive adventures.  Mike reminded me of one of them.  After working a day shift in my profession as "beverage host," he and I stuffed 7 "long necks" each into our winter coat pockets and motored off to a basketball game during which we consumed our booty.  We drove back to the saloon using nothing but alley ways, for reasons I can't readily recall.  Brilliant lads! Brilliant times (uh...  weren't they??!). (I've been counseled not to mention our "famous" automotive backing race the wrong way on Prospect Avenue...  ?!)  I should mention, Richard, Mike and I often encountered one another at the fabled and now famous, but former, Morry's On Prospect. And speaking of Morry...  

He and I had lunch together after a similar span of years had elapsed since we last had any purposeful and protracted conversation.  Here again, so good to see and interact with Morry, both socially and culturally!  A great friend and a friendship renewed! We, too, plan to make it a somewhat regular occasion.  In our most recent telephone chat, we even settled on our next choice of lunchtime cuisine!  Now that's a true sense of commitment, yes?!  Wonderful!!  Lest I forget, great, also, to see Dave K. over lunch!

Greg G. is yet another gem, an old friend with whom coffee and great conversation is a

somewhat newly initiated routine upon which I place great value!  Greg has a way of discovering the best in people and their ideas.  My time with him is always edifying and revealing. He has a generosity of spirit that is both admirable and enviable. Oh, and he admires Jungian Philosophy! (When's our next coffee date, eh, Greg??)   

Though I place equal value on (fairly) newly formed friendships with people of a "shared generational map," we've discussed such as those within the context of "film club" postings.  (Please see archival writings...   http://geezerjoel.blogspot.com/)...  I won't lengthen this piece with a repeated litany of names or the themes of our gatherings.

By contrast, and to her great credit and that of her fellows, SweetHeart enjoys uninterrupted friendships -- celebrated each month over dinner! -- with nearly lifelong good friends. Women, I suppose, being perhaps smarter (some apparently assert!) and more socially conscious than men, at least many of us, have the skill and emotional gifts to maintain relationships, even those that began some 50 and 60 years ago! Men can sometimes acquire such gifts in later life, and as in my case, emotional growth finally blossoms.  (It's a right brain thing, I think! Aina??!! One wonders why it can take so long for right brain functions to function?!)

This is SweetHeart, not with an
old friend, but a relatively new one!
(Possibly an Eagle Scout?...)

Do renewed friendships that originally commenced long ago tend to last?  Or are they ephemeral, like novelties that tend to capture our imaginations briefly and then fade as interest wanes over time?  I sincerely hope not. And to be honest I don't think so...  I think friendships with those with whom we became pals long ago can actually be stronger, more fulfilling! Why, you may ask!  Because in later life we're far less likely to try or want to impress one another.  We're able to be ourselves, without pretension, without the youthful proclivities of competition on too many levels...  financial success, who owns more stuff, number of marriages, who's funnier or more clever, who has a bigger house or garage... Maybe I'm being naive, but I sincerely hope these re-connections, renewed friendships, last a great long time, in fact, as long as those good friends and I do.   (Questions listed, below!)  

Humbly Submitted 12-30-16 -- Joel K.

Questions You May Wish to Consider, Even Answer:   

1.)  Have you re-connected with a friend or friends after the passage of many years?

2.)  How you did you arrange the re-connection, and by what means...  Email, letter, social media, chance encounter, school, the county jail...?

3.)  How do you meet...  lunching, drinks, dinner, at a skating rink, your home, her / his home?

4.)  How often do you get together, or plan to meet...  monthly, bi-monthly, weekly?

5.)  What's the history of your friendship with an old friendship renewed, and how did you first get together?