Those Nagging Rhythms

My mother confronted me one summer morning before I could escape the house. "Mrs. Thew would like her fence painted. I told her you'd do it." I'm sure I objected with the monosyllables and scowls, what 16 year old wouldn't, but brightened when she added, "She'll pay you twenty dollars." It must have seemed a fortune in 1960.

The fence was long and it was pickets. The tool was a dripping brush. The hours turned into days. I was lonely, I was desperate, I was a prisoner but I had a 4 transister radio. All those long hours it whined away with the Seattle rock station, KJR. Every hour with a probability of one hundred percent I heard the same two songs at least once. Annette Funicello soothing me with "Pineapple Princess I love you, you're the sweetest girl I've seen... and Ricky Valance whining out 'Tell Laura I love her, tell Laura I need her, Tell Laura I may be late... I loved the part when the car overturns.. a 'twisted wreck' etc. you get the idea.

What's left? Two cheesy songs reverberating in my head that shall rest there forever. If a piece of music happens to contain a bar or two that resembles either of these even slightly, I have music in my ears. I'm struck and stuck with the music, the transister radio, and the fence. It's a connection to 1960 that I love to hate.

Addendum: As I was composing this ditty, the web link to Utube 'stuck' on Tell Laura and played a second time. I scrambled about to find the stop button. Is this my fate?

Indelible Nose Baggage

Circa 1950ish

Hidden away in my parent's bedroom, was a large wooden chest used to protect valuable possessions from vermin and decay. Constructed by my father from red cedar, the most durable of our local woods, it would be many years before I valued its special significance as a family treasure. As a young lad, it was simply a curiosity with an offensive odour. When the beautiful, tight-fitting lid was lifted, the surrounding air hung thick with the inescapable smell of mothballs. My fingers would squeeze my nostrils. My young mouth would cry 'Ugh'. My mother would admonish me for my silliness.

In my memory, my mother's fur coat was the only object of note in that chest. Here was a garment made from living creatures. I was shown the inside stitching of the individual skins. "It's not mink," my mother explained, "Just muskrat made to look like mink but you know your Aunt Josie has a real mink." My imagination obsessed with hundreds of furry, four-legged creatures running in the grass, but now skinned and sewed together to make this full length coat.

Of course, my mother's coat is no longer politically correct but the olfactory memories linger. About November, the coat would endure an airing and a wearing to a special event. My mother would lean over me for a peck good night and the coat would swish my nose with mothball doodoo. Here I am today, an innocent, senior citizen with indelible, nose baggage. Welcome to my odourfest.

Inky Scratchings

Circa 1954
The scarred, stained desks in our elementary classroom had inkwell holes in the top right corner. For a laugh, you could reach in and slowly let a couple of wiggling fingers emerge as if they were the forked tongue of a snake or captured beast. This cavity was the place to dump gum wrappers, sunflower seeds or other suitably sized objects. The no-man's-land under the hole became a toxic dump. Reach in at your own risk.

About grade 6 we began to use the ink wells for an ink bottle. The bottles were circular, with a bulge around the top that suspended them in the hole. The blue, black ink usually had crusty, knib-clogging sediment coagulating in the bottom layers. The pens were long, red-painted wood holders fitted with a metal sleeve that held the knib. Dip the knib, slowly draw it out against the bottles edge allowing excess ink to fall away. Begin your scratch marks, hence the name scratch pen, the root of some amazing Rorchach blots! If you scratched too hard the paper surface would break, leaving tiny bubbles to grow around your carefully crafted letter. A sudden tap left unsightly blotches, testimony to your carelessness. The expression 'the ink is running' had real meaning! A over-sized drop might secretly cling to the knib just waiting to flow in a little river down the page. Grab your blotter and try using the edge to head the flow off or use the 'splat' method from above. Liquid, physics theory was required for good blotting, coveted by all, but mastered by few. Our joined blob marks most surely coined the expression 'hen scratch' but at least a hen can scratch again, ours was irreversible. "Do it again please," was the refrain.

Left-handers like myself, armed with these pens, were a small tribe of physically challenged, puddle makers. Any attempt to push instead of pull the sharp pointed knib, resulted in immediate "hole digging". Most of us learned to curl our hand over our work and pull, consequently the whole arm lay above the work and the nose followed the arm, usually suspended a few millimetres above the paper. We were the great smudgers and masters of the blotter, since our sweaty hands dragged constantly over freshly, drying ink. My heart sings with the advent of the ballpoint. There should be an annual three minute silence for lefties who survived this ordeal.

Playing with Smoke

Circa 1954
It takes serious, dedication to learn to smoke properly. It's about as easy as giving yourself a suntan with a propane torch or extracting your own teeth with a string and door knob. Begin when your eleven or twelve by searching out a patch of porous vines and weeds. There stems dry in such a way that when you light one end, they smolder like a Halloween punk and allow the smoke to be drawn through their porous centre. Our own Bowker Creek had a fine crop that was especially good in the late summer. Hold the coveted stem high in stylish fashion and suck until your lips hurt! Feeling dizzy? Most likely the sucking, not smoke inhalation. But yes, this is cool! Three or four of you pressed together under the soap berry bushes, willing your tortured lungs not to cough as you practice blowing smoke rings. It's a delicious secret when you're eleven. Avoid getting too close to your parents and, for heaven's sake, don't let anyone kiss your foul lips. Well done! By breathing in something that smells worse than burning socks, your virgin, pristine lungs are well prepared for the real tortures yet to come.

Everything Needs a Reason

Every so often I'm reminded of snip-its from my past during conversations about much of nothing. It's like a visit from a Seinfeld episode set in 1960. Some trivial idea percolates but has no vent. Why should anyone care how I fed my dog in 1957 or whether I had trouble adjusting to touch phones or ballpoint pens. Will I ever get to tell how we used to improve our TV reception by holding one side of the 'rabbit ears' as we watched?

Let's flow with this 'new-fangled' BLOG mentality? I write about anything that crosses my mind as if I'm telling it to a warm audience through too many beers, and readers flock to offer their two cents. What's the harm? "Don't want to read it? Fine! Don't!"

I've reached an age where I can consider myself an automatic historian. When I open my mouth to speak, the words which stumble forth are words from 'the historical record so to speak'. I can ramble with authority about my life's experiences, mundane or important, crazy or serious, happy or sad. So can we all, but not with the wisdom of the ages etched upon our memory. Time to get it all down before Alzheimer's takes hold.

When the title "Either Side of 60" arrived in my left-sided brain, only one meaning came with it. I was thinking the year 1960, my early life leading up to it and my early adulthood after it. Now I see a better, double meaning with age 60 being the midpoint. I think 60 turned out to be a most suitable number since surely at the robust age of 59 I was just reaching my pinnacle of historianship. Should I care about all this preamble stuff? Probably not, but, it's comforting knowing I can make up my own rules as I go.