A Truly Remarkable Woman, and Talented!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:     Soap Carvings, Soggy Cereal Soaked in Cocoa, Cod Liver Oil...  
                            A Truly Remarkable Woman...  Her Legend and Legacy!

"What is this stuff?" I asked the mother of my little friend, Jimmy, when he and I were kids, and in Miss Brooch'es fourth grade class at St. Bernard's School. It was a sleep-over at his home.  (Jimmy never slept over at my house!...)
"Are you trying to be cute, or funny?" Jimmy's mom replied, "Or, are you simply being obtuse?!...  It's a bar of soap! Hand soap!" With profound irritation, she spat the words, like stinging projectiles.  

"But..." I stammered, "But Mrs. Igglegoober, it isn't shaped like soap...  I mean, like any soap I've ever seen! I'm not trying to be...  Hello!!??  Missus!!??... Um...  Missus!..."

She turned quickly away from me, padding off in her pink mules shaking her head, mumbling and grousing, "Stupid child," I heard her say, and then, "How did my smart boy connect with such a rube...  Honey!," I heard her yell to her husband, "Our son has befriended a rustic, some sort of countryfied gnat brain!..."  

Today, as a grown geezer, I tell my children, grandchildren and friends about my mother's relationship with soap, and thus mine as well.  You see, Helen Genevieve Raccoli was an artist and an art teacher.  She taught legions of eager young students for more than 45 years in the Milwaukee Public School system. Among her perennial art projects, assignments given her students, was soap carving.  Each pupil was required to bring a bar of soap to school -- usually Ivory brand -- and then carve the bar into a creative shape, such as an animal or an effigy or a familiar object one sees in everyday life.

My mother was the empress of frugal.  She had an ulterior motive, I think.  Home came all the

soap carvings for use in our upstairs bathroom, downstairs "half-bath" and kitchen sink. We washed our hands and faces with fishies, chickens, duckies, dogs, cats, swine and an assortment of model cars, a 1950 Chevrolet truck, a studebaker, a LaSalle and other soapy autos. I think there may have been carved vegetables too, and heads of students' family members...  famous heads, too.  Calvin Coolidge and Herbie Hoover heads, for example!  My siblings and I never saw a "cake" of soap shaped rectangularly. How the hell would I have known the classic shape of hand soap?!...   (You snot-nosed, nasty old poop of a Mrs. Igglegoober!!)


Not only hand soap, but laundry soap.  She'd grate and flake the excess and broken "sculptures" and soak them in warm water, using a strainer in her "manufacturing process" to liquify the flakes and make laundry detergent.  Didn't exactly remove stains but then what did in those days?! Everything we wore smelled like old soap and spoiled eggs because of the ancient starch she somehow managed to obtain for nearly nothing.  My older brother was not amused.  "Ma!  My friends say I smell like rotten eggs! Why can't we get NEW starch, like udder kids...?"

Greeting cards!  My mother never sent a new greeting card.  She'd white out or somehow obliterate print and signatures and "re-purpose" the cards she received.  I think she mistakenly sent the same card to someone who sent the card to her...  on several occasions. I don't think the recipients ever challenged her. If they did she'd simply laugh it off and suggest the complainer was merely delusional.  "Just duplicate cards," she'd insist. Gift wrap? She made us open those rare, wrapped packages with great care so that she could re-use the stuff, and not just once! "Be very careful, honey, don't rip the paper...!!" 

She made a great deal of her own clothing, for her children too. On one occasion when we were in 7th and 8th grade respectively, she made my brother, Kris, and me winter overcoats. They were made of a forest green fabric and brown fur collars, and belts. I've never been much for fashion, but even for me that was beyond what I'd agree to wear in public. Strange and "geeky" - looking, the coats were, however, superbly made.  

She was always the artist, a perfectionist in everything she fashioned. My mother painted wonderful pictures, watercolors, acrylics and oils. She worked with ceramics and even sculpted in wood. She did get a bit odd at one point in her career, plopping large flowers in the forefront of some of her paintings, but the phase didn't last long. It was what we termed her

"Goon (-y) (Floral) Period."

Two of my mother's paintings, one
a rowboat and boathouse scene from
a pier on Okauchee Lake, the other
(at right) birch trees...  probably
needless to specify!

In robust middle age, perhaps a bit earlier, my mother became fascinated with investing, the stock market in all of its frightening complexities.  For her, however, it was a hobby that bore great dividends.  She did extremely well with her investments, a talent that sadly passed over at least one fiduciary imbecile in my generation...  meaning me, of course. My brother and sister inherited the talent, to their credit. Alas, some siblings are merely distracted I suppose!...

Back to my mother...  she had a remarkably well-honed sense of humor and an infectious laugh. And she was magnificently eccentric, in behavior, as in attire, wearing animal-print outfits, Attila the Hun fur-rimmed headwear, Persian shoes, enormous purple-rimmed glasses and enough jewelry that would cause many lesser mortals to become stoop-shouldered.  

Her artistry extended to things culinary as well. I must elucidate. She was a terrible cook and baker, but she set a beautiful table. When my mother entertained, the cooking or catering was "outsourced." Here's an illustration of her kitchen "skills." When my wife, SweetHeart, was pregnant with our first child, my mother invited us to dinner...

"What's she serving?" SweetHeart asked.
"What are we having for dinner?" I asked my mother, into the telephone. "What? Oh! Pork roast with mashed potatoes. That's nice. Isn't that nice, SweetHeart? Probably won't affect your morning sickness at all, right?" I opined the latter sotto voce. Things didn't work as I'd hoped. You see, my mother owned a pressure cooker, holes in the kitchen ceiling attesting to its explosive power when the pressure propelled that thing on the top -- I think it's called a "steam vent" -- with such force it might have flown beyond the earth's atmosphere had the kitchen ceiling not intervened!! She tended to cook everything in the pressure cooker. As such, the pork roast was grey and rubbery, the mashed potatoes grey with the consistency and flavor of wallpaper paste. We don't mention the sour kraut for fear of my safety! SweetHeart spent much of the evening in the small downstairs washroom.  

On another occasion, my mother invited us for chicken and dumplings. As though heavenly chefs created a gastronomic miracle, the dinner was superb. "Ask you mother to make chicken and dumplings," said SweetHeart on another occasion, a year or two removed from the first. The chicken was rubber, the dumplings lumps of 1950s school room paste. My mother could not repeat the miracle of the past. To her credit, she knew she was a terrible cook, and laughed along with the rest of us at her gastronomic disasters.

See...  I like big lumpy stuff,
particulates, in my pea soup.  My
brother complained...  Mom pureed
the soup.  I never got lumps, except
on my head when I wouldn't play
properly with my big brother!!

Early in their married life, my brother's wife, Jaynie, made stuffed peppers. She's an excellent cook. My brother picked at the dinner and announced, "This isn't like my mom used to make." Jaynie was highly displeased, to state the matter euphemistically, knowing her mother-in-law's reputation in the kitchen. Happily, the young marriage survived, and, in time, brother, Kris, grew to appreciate truly fine cuisine, cooking skill and good food he had not known in his youth. 

(My brother always complained the split pea soup was "too lumpy." I preferred lumpy particulates in my soup.  Mother pureed the pea soup.  His complaints were louder and more effective, obviously, then mine! Once when I complained the bread she served us was stiff and dry, my brother dumped a slice of bread in my tomato soup!...  but that's a story for another time!)

(From Left) The perpetrator of this writing, SweetHeart,
Jaynie, wife of brother, Kris, and Kris at right, taken
during Kris and Jaynie's 50th Anniversary celebration!

My siblings and I grew up on soggy cereal soaked in hot cocoa, the skim on top of the boiled stuff a particular source of nausea for me. And cod liver oil. My mother insisted our daily eye dropper full of cod liver oil was the source of perfect attendance throughout elementary and high school, not to mention the strength and stamina needed to deliver heavy Sunday newspapers through brutal winters in Wisconsin.    

Apart from her eccentricities, her talents and her lack thereof in a certain realm, my mother

That's my mother, Helen G., shown
with my father, photo taken in 1974.
Note the ubiquitous 8mm movie camera!!
The image at top was taken, perhaps, in
the late 1930s or early 1940s!

was an extraordinary person, kind and generous almost to a fault. She volunteered her time and talents for so many, including teaching art classes to seniors, taking care of those less fortunate, the sick and needy in so many different ways and venues. She gave a great deal of her time, love and attention to a certain set of fatherless grandchildren, never complaining, always available when needed, or wanted for her special gifts. She was much loved, respected and admired. 

Oh yes, one more thing. My mother loved to travel. I believe she visited nearly every country on this planet. She collected masks, hats and various artifacts. I have the mask collection in my office. They're wonderful. They scare and fascinate my grandchildren. And 8mm home movies. She made more movies than Cecil DeMille or John Huston, I think. 

My mother was a marvel of creativity, innovation and interests. My brother and I miss her, as do all of her family members who survive. My children, Alie and Bethie, and her other grandkids remember with fondness and humor the gifts she bought them from rummage sales! To my mother, the rummage sale was a kind of religion, and she'd never pass one by, no more than she'd ignore bananas at 29 cents a pound, or canned goods on sale that she'd stockpile in her basement larder, a storehouse that could have fed an army of shut-ins!

"Kids, get those dishes done! Don't make me have to tell you again? I've said it 47 times!! *"
(* Her favorite number, particularly when agitated or wishing to emphasize something!)

Humbly Submitted with Loving Memory, 06-20-17 -- Joel K.

       

        

     

  

          

From Russia with Music!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      From Russia with Music! 

(Introductory Note:    In the mist of Geezerhood, an ancestral reflection, with just a touch of conjecture...  chronicling an extraordinary life and legend!)

The year was, perhaps, 1880 or 1881. A young boy sang as he labored in the fields, toil demanded, of necessity, by his father, an impoverished and struggling farmer. The boy sang and hummed the few tunes he knew, given the brevity of his time on the earth, perhaps 10, at most 11 years of age.  He sang almost without pause, a kind of mantra, a meditation, his manner of coping with the rigors of an endless agrarian routine. Russian-Jewish folk songs, or hymns learned in the synagogue, songs inspired by the Torah, its various passages and teachings.  

Painting depicts Russian-Jewish
peasants...  A scene alive with activity
including a rabbi's passionate
exhortation.  Could that be young
 Samuel running to join his family!?

Each harvest day on the small, barely arable farm, the boy carried a sack into which he gathered the wheat his father scythed, or potatoes, onions and other root vegetables wrenched from a stubborn, reluctant soil.  Always the boy sang or hummed the songs in his limited repertoire.  One day, by pure chance, the shtetl's rabbi was passing and heard the boy singing. Stopping along his journey, the rabbi was transfixed, captivated, as if stumbling upon a rare coin or a gemstone, barely able to believe his senses.  

"Reb Gimpel," said Rabbi Nachum, calling to him, addressing the boy's father, "your child, he sings with such a remarkable voice.  I am most favorably impressed.  The boy has a true gift." Gimpel Rochov merely grunted in reply, apparently heedless of the rabbi's astonished words. "Your boy," the rabbi continued, "he could be a somebody in this world.  He could sing for a famous synagogue of which I know, near Kiev. Such a thing could bring money to your family."  

At this Gimpel Rochov stopped his labors, and stood facing the rabbi. "Money, you say, Honored Rabbi Nachum!"  The elder Rochov had eight children, four of each, sons and daughters. Too many gaping mouths demanding bread and vegetables, meat when it was available, a rare occurrence. "This money you speak of, how is it to be obtained?"

"I don't mean to be indelicate, Reb Gimpel, but you might wish to consider my taking the boy to Synagogue 'Rosha Choral Bolshaya.' There I could, in theory, meet with Rebbe Yakov Moishtovich, the chief and much revered rabbi leader of that fabled place! It is famous throughout Russia for its music, its singing. If things work out, The boy could then be...  well, how shall I put this...  fostered by the synagogue, in exchange for...  how shall I put this most delicately...  consideration! I believe the boy's talent could be nurtured. He might even be taught to play musical instruments. You are not a rich man, Reb Gimpel. I know you love your family, but one less mouth...  You understand? You and your wife could visit the boy on occasion, see how he's getting along."

Probably not the right synagogue...
but, who knows, it could be!...

"Kiev's a long way off, Rabbi," the elder Rochov said. "I shall discuss this with my wife, my Sofia. I mean... Asking a mother to give up a child. It's a big thing!"

"You'll make the right decision, of that I'm certain, Reb Gimpel. Explain to your dear Sofia the need... the boy's possible future, your own...  Meantime, I will have a discussion with Rebbe Yakov. As it happens, I am on my way even now to visit that sacred place. I'll tell him about your boy, the miracle of his gift. I can take the boy myself to the synagogue...  an interview, so to speak, a kind of audition...  I'm back in about a week. I'll come to see you then."

Another day passed. The boy, young Samuel Rochov, was given the news of his possible future. Gimpel and Sofia talked, argued. As head of the family, the father's decision prevailed. "What will become of our beloved child?" Sofia asked, her voice filled with worry and sadness.

"It's not forever, Sofia.  He'll come home for visits.  We can maybe journey to that place and see the boy. He'll make us proud. He'll be a somebody in this world! We'll be known as the parents of a famous cantor, perhaps. And, my dear wife, a bit of money will help a great deal. We have so little. Besides, the boy is slight, like a small twig, not a great deal of labor issues from the child..."

Moscow and Kiev are not that far
from one another.  Look!  A map!

"I don't like this," said Sofia. "I don't want my precious son taken from us. But, as you are the proclaimed 'tsar' of our household, your decision must prevail, and so I must bow to your wishes. I hope you know what you're asking of me, of our child. I worry we'll never see our sweet Samuel again! He doesn't want to leave us. He begs me not to send him away."  

In a short passage of time, Rabbi Nachum took Samuel to Synagogue Rosha Choral Bolshaya, and there the child remained for a decade or so. The boy was treated as chattel, an instrument into which music was fed then extracted, his extraordinary voice trained and cultivated. He was taught to play music as well. He learned flute and violin, having a natural gift for anything in the realm of music and song. There was no mother figure, only the stern Ryfka, who taught Samuel his lessons, and the rebbe, rabbinical students and the teachers of music. Days consisted of lessons, his training, meals, sleep, work and little else. Samuel never again saw his mother and father, his sisters and brothers. He never again returned to the shtetl and the home of his birth and childhood.

The synagogue and its musical traditions were famous throughout European Jewry. When he was 19 years old, then a highly trained musical prodigy, emerging as an established and important component of Rosha Bolshaya's choral ensemble and choir, Samuel accompanied the group on a lengthy tour of major European capitals. Eventually they arrived in Rome, having previously performed in Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna and other great urban synagogues and concert centers.

Samuel had made a decision, one that became a bold plan. He was poised to break free from Rosha Choral Bolshaya and the harsh and impersonal treatment his difficult and tedious life had become as "property" of an endlessly demanding synagogue. While it's true Samuel's gift of music was greatly enhanced in that crucible, its spiritual leaders and teachers had also burned anger and resentment into his young mind, like adding tongue scorching, bitter spice to a boiling stew. He rose from his bed in a Roman hostel in the middle of a moonless night, crept from the room and escaped into an enormous, complex and completely unfamiliar urban landscape.

Finding with time and effort the Jewish quarter in the vast city, he presented himself as a homeless youth, seeking and then finding menial jobs in shops and markets. His fertile mind a hungry vessel of knowledge, Samuel quickly acquired the Italian language as he wandered throughout Rome when opportunities allowed. His dark, curly hair and swarthy complexion allowed him to assimilate.  As he worked in the shops and market stalls, he spoke with native Romans, learned, asked questions of patrons and people in the streets, his ear constantly tuned to accent, inflection, words and idiom. The people for whom he worked provided rude shelter, a place to sleep and bathe, food from their shops, farm carts and markets. He continued to grow and thrive.

A year passed quickly and Samuel's age increased to 20 years. Two remarkable events would change his life and propel him into a future of which he could never have dreamed or thought possible, both unexpected and quite by chance and good fortune. On a rare day in which he was free of shop or market duties and on his own, he walked the streets of Rome, exploring the city's rich history, attractions and landmarks. On this particular day, one that was bathed in warmth and sunshine, he emerged from a park to cross a busy street alive with pedestrian and carriage traffic.  As he dodged and wove his way through the chaos and tangle of people, horses, wheeled carts and buggies, he happened upon a jewelry store that bore the proprietor's name, Harry Raccoli.

Samuel regarded the sighting as a kind of kismet. He decided to adopt the name as his own, perceiving it as a natural "Italianization" of Rochov, and a perfectly effective and useful change of identity. Samuel formally and legally became Harry Raccoli in 1909 in a federal courtroom in Baltimore, Maryland, where both he and his future father-in-law would also become naturalized American citizens.  

The second remarkable event...  While walking the streets of Rome -- not merely a favorite diversion but having become routine as his familiarity with the city increased -- Samuel happened upon a musical competition. He joined the queue to wait his turn, planning to sing an Italian operatic aria he had learned during his sojourn in the country's capital city. The queue was serpentine, and long! And so too was the waiting time. As people do in such circumstances, he struck up a conversation with a woman and her son, the pair waiting just in front of Samuel.

"You are a singer?" the woman asked, as they chatted somewhat aimlessly, his extraordinary speaking voice a clue to his "instrument" of choice.  
"Yes," said Samuel. "I was classically trained," he embellished, having no desire to divulge his full story, his "escape" narrative.  
"Your accent is unusual," the woman noted. "What is your name, please."
He paused before answering, "I am called Harry Raccoli. My family lived in Russia for a long period of time," Samuel responded. "I'm afraid my accent betrays my Russian, how shall I say, my sojourn in the Russian metropole, at times, the countryside as well." The woman made no further inquiry into his history and background.
"Would you, perhaps, sing something for us, that is, for my son and me?"
"You mean," Samuel replied, somewhat taken aback, "right here, right now, standing here in this endless queue?" She nodded. He sang an aria from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore in his rich tenor (that in time would deepen to baritone) -- quite possibly Una furtiva lagrima!.  

It may have been one of many he had already learned through, or perhaps the only piece that made its way into his musical mind and memory at the time. The woman and her son were astonished, mesmerized, as were many in that queue within earshot!

Able after a long moment to gather her thoughts and words, the woman said,"You are quite magnificent." Many others in the queue were equally affected by Samuel's voice, his talent, and quite stunned over this completely unexpected explosion of operatic singing. 

"I shall make you a bargain," the woman told Samuel, still wide-eyed with excitement and amazement. "I am a woman of some means.  If you should chance to win this competition, should we ever actually arrive at the head of this intolerable queue, I will, if you wish, become your patroness! If my son should win -- although I must confess," she added as a kind of aside, out of her son's hearing, "that your skill seems to eclipse anything, any voice I've ever heard. But if my son should win, I would still take you into my patronage and ask that you tutor my son in voice and music...  I trust you also play certain musical instruments?..." 

Samuel won the competition! The woman kept her bargain. The newly "self-named" Harry Raccoli remained in Rome for a few more years, studying, teaching, learning, with the patronage and unwavering encouragement of Sigorna Marchesi. And her son benefitted as well, in time earning a minor role with an Italian opera company.

Harry Raccoli, formerly Samuel
Rochov, circled.  He taught voice
at a Chicago conservatory of music
at one point in his career!

Ambition and a yearning for financial success eventually led Samuel to leave Rome and Signora Marchesi. She and her son had also provided useful tutoring for young Samuel. Among other skills, he learned to speak English, enabling him to correspond with certain American opera companies. The selfless signora made no objection, no insistence that Samuel remain with her in Rome. He was invited to the United States, to Maryland and the Baltimore Opera Company to audition. Samuel arrived at Ellis Island in the late 1890s, a letter from the opera company facilitating his admission into the United States. His talent won him a place with the company, and an introduction to Slava (Viachislav) Tucker, a Russian emigre, a patron of the opera and the father of Rebecca who would become Samuel's wife.   

Having then permanently adopted the name Harry Raccoli, he traveled to Germany (circa 1903) to study at the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin, returning to Baltimore with a newly acquired catalog of operatic knowledge and arias with which he entertained audiences for many years to follow. He and Rebecca moved to Chicago and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin where Harry Raccoli and his family lived for most of the balance of his life.   He ultimately fathered four children, Arthur, Theodore, Genevieve (Helen) and Elizabeth. Harry won fame and widespread recognition as a singer and performer of opera, and later as a teacher of voice, violin and piano. Sadly, his career was cut short, his fortunes greatly diminished by the onset of Parkinson's Disease that claimed his life at age 73 following a long and debilitating illness. 

There's no clear evidence as to when, but Harry abandoned any practice of Judaism, probably when he was still quite young and as a by-product of his early life experiences. (Interestingly, his wife, my grandmother, Rebecca, also eventually left the practice of Jewish religious service. She flirted with various spiritual traditions, including Christian Science!) Harry Raccoli's legacy endures, and includes the many students he taught and mentored -- including one of his own sons -- most of whom made performing and teaching music their lifelong careers, sharing their knowledge and talents with successive generations. 

It is, I think, unfortunate that so many, perhaps most of us, learn little or nothing of our ancestors, our family heritage, and sometimes only when advanced age and wonder compel us to explore the lives and times of our antecedents. And then it's often too late to mine the resources of older, surviving relatives who may have little or no recollections, who may be victims of dementia or Alzheimer's, or are among the "dear departed." The dead among our ancestors can tell us little, unless they left accounts of their lives, careers and adventures via writing, journals, annotated photographs... Sadly, such records are rare in most families!

My own mother made 8mm movies of her world travels, thereby documenting at least that portion of her rich life. I believe my sister transferred those films onto DVDs, the existence or whereabouts of which are a mystery. Both women are no longer with us.  

There's little doubt my maternal grandfather's life became the stuff of an "oral tradition" or family history, his legend passed along through the generations, likely because his was such a remarkably colorful and interesting life, a kind of storybook journey from peasantry and poverty in Russia to great success and fame through his gift of music. Given the time in which he lived and worked, unfortunately there are no recordings of his singing or his instrumental performances, at least of which his surviving progeny are aware!

Next time, I'll return to less serious subject matter. But just so this episode is not entirely devoid of amusement and silliness, I've added a photo of myself as "makeshift bench," and Granddaughter, Phia, enabling her to climb a tree! (Half of Grandson, Seany, is at right!...  He's actually an entire person; the photographer was apparently engaged in a form of semi-artistic expression!)  Thank you!

Humbly Submitted, 05-19-17 -- Joel K.

                 



             







                     

                 

The Drinking Culture! Or, Fine Pubs and Their Pickling Potions!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      The Drinking Culture!...    or, maybe...  "Pickles" at the Gate!   

“Where the hell's ‘Lare the Hair' ?” I bellowed within the private confines of my skull, silent rage and  impatience growing inside my brain like a bulbous nodule of fatty tissue, my face a plate of purple beets.  I was seething.  He was seriously late.  I hated to be anything but on time for a Seattle Totems hockey match, though they were doing poorly in the 1970 season. 

Didn’t matter.  I was hooked; we were both hooked on the "Totes."  “So where the hell is he?” I asked aloud to Arnold, the bartender on duty at The 400 Club.  Arnold shrugged. He murmured, "Huh?"
  

The tavern’s name was a small mystery that, long before, may have had something to do with its location or address (but of no relevance at the time!), perhaps the number of drunkards thrown out and banned for life?!  No one really knew, and there was no one in the place who had the answer, nor was there an obvious clue to provide one on its walls or from those wobbling on its vinyl-padded stools.

I dumped down a couple more bottles of Rainier beer, paced nervously, played the punch boards.  At some point in the anxious and impatient waiting game, I walked to the men’s room where a smallish, high window was the only “periscope” through which to view the tavern’s parking lot.  I climbed onto the commode, the sole elevation from which to see the lot and its contents, searching for Lare’s “midnight blue” Pontiac.  I slipped off the rim of the bowl, my right foot twisting badly as it and I fell into the bowl, plunging into the cold water of the toilet.  I hollered in agony.

I hoped no one in the crowded bar had heard my pitiful screech of pain, something like the ear-piecing cry of a particular owl -- so named for its strident sound -- streaking from its perch in pursuit of a hapless rodent.  I hobbled to the bar.  “Arnold, gimme a bottle of Olympia this time.  I feel like I fell off a precipice.  I got a ‘soaker’ when I hit bottom.” Arnold was unlike the stereotypical bartender. He lacked the quality of attentive listening!

  

“Hey,” said Arnold, at some point coming round to the patrons' side of the bar to prop up a drunkard, then turning his quizzical gaze to me, “Why’s there a puddle under your foot?”  The “Hair” finally showed up, wearing a sheepish and apologetic grin. 
"We've missed the whole damn first period," I complained. "Why so late?! What if we missed Claudie DuFour catching a puck in his mouth?!"

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

My own dear father collected them!  Saloons, taverns, bars, gin joints, whatever one's preferred nomenclature might be!  He had a catalog of them, his favorites and those of secondary appeal, given what they charged for a large beer (the chaser!) and a shot of brandy, and whether or not they had a cribbage board.  As I look back in time from the high mountains of wizened geezerhood -- soberly these days -- I freely admit I inherited his fondness for them. I had my own collection!  Sometimes when I'm daydreaming in my office -- on extremely rare occasions, of course! -- I recall certain brilliant episodes of tavern life, glorious

"Yeah, that's the ticket!  Back
me up Five Deep!  Hey, where
are my shots?"  

memories of the Boozing Culture! 

There's a village in the "Lakes Country" west of our major metropolis.  Okauchee -- with its nearby waters of the same name -- boasted, like so many small towns in Wisconsin, a saloon for every 10 residents, or so it seemed! Westphal's was our favorite. Always the joint resounded with brilliant conversation, and equally brilliant patrons.  
"Hey, Stinky, what's it again you do fer work?"

"I'm a drunkard."

"Is the pay any good?"

"Yo, Durwood, I like that sweater.  Argyle comes alive on youse! I could, maybe, sometime borrow it, if I ever, like, have a date??!"

"Anybody got any dope to sell? What?... I'm talking too loud?!"

"Hey Bry! Why must I always pay for my drinks? Am I not your duly-invited guest here? I mean, when you come to my house for cocktails, social and cultural interaction, do I ask you to pay for your drinks?"

During my days living in the Seattle, Washington area, my friend and fellow beverage host, Leonard, was frequently assaulted by his estranged wife, Mavis.  She'd sit at the bar, become extravagantly inebriated and then pelt him with the lemons he'd just cored.  She often grabbed him by his tie and punched his face.  Poor beleaguered Leonard.  Such elegant times! The boozing life at its zenith, its finest! Leonard disappeared after Mavis drove into the plate glass window at his last-known saloon job. As if it were a regular occurrence -- glass shards cascading onto the hood, twinkling like cheap baubles -- she calmly got out of her car, entered the joint and bombarded Leonard with lemons! (We don't know how she found him! But I believe at that point Leonard had already begun to wear clip-on neckties! Mavis was furious! No one's heard from Leonard since 1973!)

University life! Just like scenes from The Student Prince, eh?! The Ardmore, The Gym, The Vogue... Such sophistication! Entire mornings and afternoons spent in glorious intoxication. "Hey, you through with classes for the day already?"

"What?...  Oh, uh... I must check my schedule...  What time's Epistemology?"

Might be an interior shot of The
Ardmore, possibly the Vogue!
Doesn't really matter.  They
were both on or near the old
Marquette U. campus, an image of
which is pictured below...  (Suitably,
kind of tipsy in the mid-day sun!!)

My great friend, Pat, and I used to perform grand "hook-a-thons," meaning road trips on which we'd try to stop at every saloon we almost passed. Wonderful times, I think?? Prior to enlisting in the military he and I secured a case of cheap beer -- in quart bottles, 6 for each of us -- and consumed the entire ocean of suds at a drive-in movie theater. Police arrived at 2:30AM, roused us from our peaceful if unconscious state and hauled us to the town jail, and there we remained incarcerated until a parent came to spring us. Brilliant!  Oh yeah, and "flaming shots," particularly memorable at two different joints on Burleigh Street; often I resembled "Beppo the Human Torch" -- a brightly illuminated by-product of those highly intelligent episodes, hair and whiskers gorgeously ablaze!

There's a two-pronged point to all this nonsense! (At least I think there is?!): 

1.)  In the "drinking culture" -- the local bar as poor persons' club -- we hang with kindred souls, some tortured, some merely perpetually drunk, we regard ourselves and our companions as terribly amusing, wonderfully funny! Aren't we?  Are we merely forcing laughter and trying too hard to entertain and be entertained, to forget, to blend in, or to "be somebody"!

Not the "905" we actually consumed,
but, you know, quarts is quarts! (Please
see Paragraph 10 above for reference!)

2.)  When we've either quit entirely or cut way down on our consumption of alcoholic spirits, are we permitted to look back on those earlier times of life and recall them with laughter, with actual joy in our hearts, as cherished events worth remembering?

How the hell would I know? On the other foot, Sure! Why not?! I mean, I think we can't simply ignore or try to forget our days of magnificent inebriation, when we were stein-hoisting, falling-down members of the Drinking Set! That was simply us, or that was me, in a different sphere of consciousness, in younger times, in a previous "compartment" of life's richly eclectic trajectory! Aint it? Sure, they may not have been our finest hours, but they helped to mold us into who and what we are today, to construct and form our characters, to solidify and validate our attitudes and values! (True! Some of us never actually make the transition... !)  

Oh yeah, one more bright memory in the great panoply of boozing adventures...   Red Top, Muskie Don and I succeeded in being thrown out of Hooligans Super Bar, that was before it became gentrified! It was a beautifully planned affair. We were running drunk until it got yellow out, went to an all-night market and bought a half-gallon of Tutti-Frutti ice cream. We offered the frozen confection to Hooligan's early-morning opening bartender, and ordered him to make us each a cream drink. We decided to call our creation a "Tutti-Frutti Pink Gin Sissy." "Oh yeah," one of us insisted, "Don't forget the paper umbrellas and the fruity-tooty garnish!" 

"Get the hell out of here now," the bartender bellowed, as he reached for his Louisville Slugger, his red-blotched eyes blazing with ire!! We stumbled out, but with exemplary dignity!!

A couple of concluding thoughts! I have to state quite honestly, we truly enjoyed the Drinking Life while it lasted. It was our inheritance, in a manner of speaking. SweetHeart has often said, "Alcohol abuse doesn't run in our families, it gallops," borrowing a line from a famous movie comedy. Just as honestly, having now parted company from strong drink, we find our lives happier, more manageable and, in a sense, more secure in many different ways. We have no intention, here, of denigrating the Drinking Set and those who do imbibe alcoholic beverages. It's just not for us at this juncture. Many if not most of our

frequent companions drink. No problem for them, nor for us...  it's just a different beverage choice, and almost always in sensible moderation.  
So raise your glasses, friends and fellow lovers of fine literature (and the sweet nectar of your own choosing!), and drink a toast to great saloons and the great friends who frequently or occasionally populate them. Or, if the coffee house is your "social club" or gathering place of choice, raise your mugs! Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, 04-19-17 -- Joel K.

Questions:

What's your favorite tavern or bar or saloon?

What's your favorite beer?

Your favorite mixed or blended drink?

What's your favorite or funniest memory of tavern life?
What's your favorite coffee house, and its location?

           

      

    

  

   

  

It's Spring!... Wait!... What?... It's Tax Time... Again??!!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      It's Spring!...  Wait!...  What?...  It's Tax Time...  Again??!!

It's all so "trilling"!!  Soaring hearts of youth -- geezers' too, of course -- pulse with joy! Like songbirds that presage warmer temperatures and outdoor strolls unhampered by galoshes, greatcoats and heads wrapped in wool babuskas, they perch on media waves crooning their promises of enormous refunds and clever means of evasion.  Adorned in frighteningly silly neckwear or frilly frocks, the gorgeous

A "Tax Bird" in Full
Fiduciary Regalia!

green plumage of the "Tax Birds" -- accountants and CPAs -- beckons us to mahogany perches, calculators and dazzling software!  It's income tax time! "Oh, lo, how the purse thins as the coin shrivels...!!" (Shakespeare:  Little Known Sonnet of a Tax Collector!) 

In the blissful autumn of geezerhood, I stare in bewildered stupefaction at my current "Profit (?) and Loss Statement," its feckless scratchings and negative bottom line. Back in the 1970s, SweetHeart and I fell victim to the IRS and its legion of auditors.  In the first year, we were nearly driven into bankruptcy as a result of...  well, many factors, including bad advice and my own guileless stupidity!  That first experience, however, taught us to keep impeccably thorough and accurate records, receipts of each and every tax-deductible expenditure, business and personal. We became giants of stuff fiduciary, digits flying deftly among the beads of our 

abacus, stuffing envelopes and shoeboxes with documents and receipts and amulets designed to ward off evil karma and demons! 

In subsequent audit years, friendly and efficient IRS luminaries invited themselves into our home (unless there was insistence on a visit to his or her office in the Federal Building; thus we'd comply, clutching shoeboxes glutted with papers!).  They'd rummage through all of our business file drawers, heads often shaking, emitting occasional ejaculations of muddle!  Ms. Myrtle Fine-Em was one of those officials who came to our home, her objective to investigate every scrap of parchment with punctilious precision!

"May I do something to assist you, Ms. Fine-Em," I asked as she leafed through every slice of of printed paper in my outrageously disorganized filing system.
"No thank you," she responded, "and you may call me Myrtle."
"Oh I could never presume on such familiarity with an official of the Federal Government, Ms. Fine-Em," I replied, as I shelled and chewed pistachios inches from her right ear. "Would you like a chair, or a garden kneeling pad?" I asked, "perhaps a cushion or a bean-bag seat?"  She knelt near our short file cabinet as she searched and examined and mumbled.
"No thank you.  I'm fine as I am."  I continued to shell and chew.  "You're welcome to go about

other business," she nearly commanded, eyes stinging with irritation.  I think she cared little for pistachios... or chewing!
"May I get you a beverage? Soft drink, coffee, water, juice, kefir... We have chocolate milk, whiskey, beer, vodka...? I could make you a foo foo beverage in the blender; I used to be licensed bartender."  
"Thank you, no!" It was more a growl than a mere refusal.  
"Well," I said, "I'm here if you need me. I'll just get you a glass of water.  I'll leave it here on the filing cabinet. Ice?" She issued a grunt in reply. I went into the kitchen, needing a potable myself, something to slosh down the pistachios.   
  
I don't recall his name. I dubbed him Seymour Reasonstopenalize. He was one of several astute IRS auditors in the parade.  Upon spending hours -- probably it was more like days! -- inspecting every conceivable tax record we had collected, he peered at me sheepishly and asked, "Uh...  Joel, um, how do I put this delicately? Do you think you'll ever actually...  (here, he paused!)... well, um, actually earn any money?!  I mean...  actually realize a profit from business??!!"

"I rather hope not," said I.  "We're doing splendidly as we are!" I quipped foolishly. "I don't know how we'd manage if we ever actually made any money!!" I elucidated, further, stating I would quite likely be voted the worst peddler (salesperson) in this or any other hemisphere! My business acumen suffers by comparison to others of the self-employment ilk. Seymour was very understanding. He left a gold star, stuck it onto my file cabinet!   

"Be assured, madam, your information will not be shared!
Now, where may I Email your receipt...  you know, for
your record-keeping and income tax purposes!"

In time, we felt magnificently triumphant, escaping assessment of penalties and interest in those subsequent six or so years of audits, a tribute to adroit record-keeping...  And lots of receipts -- barely decipherable jottings on foolscap and torn bits of brown paper sacks!! But legitimate, acceptable stuff! Tax time became joyful, like a warming sun following a cascade of hail balls, the sweet kiss of dew on clover, a brilliant summer's morn...  a large refund check!(??) (The latter we have not enjoyed!!)

Having thus poked a bit of fun at honored, respected and much-loved agents of the income tax continuum, I feel I must add a tribute to an outstanding Tax Accountant of my own particular ken. I've always called him, Freddy, and we've been great friends since grade school... paper routes, baseball in front of his family's garage... crazed and reckless bicycle riding... everything that kids do and enjoy. We're both grown geezers now, and he has graciously deigned to handle our income tax matters -- ridiculous as they may be -- and has done over the past few years. I dubbed him a "Fiduciary Genius," as he is most deserving of the title! Our returns had never before been accomplished with such detailed and glorious professionalism. We are blessed! (I hope he never sends me packing to one of those creatures who walks about looking like Verdigris Statues with spikes coming out of their heads!!)    


And, thus, I conclude this happy journey along the "Tax Road" and the adventures on which it has taken us. We intend no disrespect to accountancy, the IRS, bean-counters or other noble fiduciaries. This posting is merely our tribute to that magnificent "season of every new year" that is supposed to conclude on April 15th, the gods, computers and sundry circumstances permitting!!  

[ Special Note of Dual Dedication:  The perpetrator dedicates this writing to his dear friend, Freddy, a tax and accounting professional of exceptional talent and grace. He has generously taken on our income tax morass with unusual understanding and acceptance...  hardly any grumbling over the state of our convoluted income tax narrative, records and spreadsheets. We are grateful in the extreme for his skills and expertise. (Now then, Freddy, old chap, where are we lunching next month??!!)  In addition, I dedicate this blog to SweetHeart, whose contributions to our tax records and overall preparation are far better than my own inane ramblings, and whose encouragement is always vital and most welcome during the proceedings! With love and hugs to both dedicatees! Oh yes, and thank you too, Pat! Your scheduling and communications skills play a major role as well. ]   

Humbly Submitted, 03-24-17 -- Joel K.