“Garf”

It was the first day at John Hay School. I was a new first-grader. Stanley Garfinkle, “Garf,” was a big kid who, like me, struggled with his weight all his life. I did not know that I was in a Jewish neighborhood, nor did the word “Jew” carry any connotations for me. I only knew that he had a funny sounding name, “Garfinkle,” so as unthinking and uncompassionate little kids sometimes do, I began playing with his name. “Gar-tinkle” had a nice ring to it. How about “Fart-inkle?”

“You’d better cut that out, kid. That is my family name and I’m proud of it. It has a long history and I’m not going to let anyone make fun of it.”

Of course this just got my mind going. I was getting more creative even as he grabbed me by my coat collar and slammed me to the ground and proceeded to sit on top of me while thumping my chest with his knuckle. “Are you going to stop?” Thump—thump—thump—“Are you ever going to make fun of my name again?” Thump—thump—thump—this went on for some time. I was stubborn and he was persistent. It was becoming obvious, however, that I was less interested in carrying on with this game than he was in extracting a “binding” agreement that this thumping should never happen again.

“OK, OK, OK, I give up?” as he continued thumping my chest, which was by now feeling a bit sore.

“You promise?” Thump—thump—thump.

“OK, I promise!” Thump—thump—thump. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t forget so he gave me several more for good measure.

I never made fun of his name, or anyone else’s, again, that I recall. Stanley and I became good friends, went through the remainder of grade school, junior high, and high school together, and because our last names were close in the alphabet, were often in the same home room and regimented seating arrangements we had in those days. We were on the high school football team, wrestling team, and track team together. We were both “heavyweight” wrestlers and my one “pay-back” moment came during a wrestle-off for who would represent the team in an upcoming match when I pinned him during the first 2 minutes. Shortly after I cracked a rib trying an “arm-rollover” move on Paul Casperson, a 250 pounder on the team, and Stan went on to represent the school in matches the rest of the year. In track practice everyone had to run the half-mile and the coach used to say “Get the calendars out. Garfinkle and Hamilton are running.”

As I mentioned, both Stan and I had a life-long battle with our weight. I eventually came to terms with mine. Stanley must have been over 400 pounds when he passed away a few years ago. I had trimmed down to 180. I saw him at our 40^th high school reunion at North High. It was a bit of a shock. He never went to college and I understand he became a plumber. Stan had a heart of gold and would literally give you the shirt off of his back.

“Garf,” I’m glad I knew ya. And thanks for the thumping. I needed it.

A New Day

Drinking coffee this morning

At Mickey D

On the way to Tai Chi class

Ah, the smell of it

The taste of it

Never before.

A new day dawns

A fresh encounter

With the sun,

With Friends,

With me

I need nothing more.

What Hath Been Lost?

From the time I was old enough to get on one of those big yellow electric land boats I loved the clang of the bells and the clackety-clack of metal wheels on metal rails and putting a token in the box under the watchful eye of the motorman. You could go almost anywhere in Minneapolis on those wonder-wagons. Sometimes when I just wanted to get away from home for a few hours or just for the ride, I would get on at Plymouth and Morgan and get a transfer to the Hennepin line, then another to the Lake Calhoun-Lake Harriet which took you around both lakes. All the way to the end of the line at about 56^th Street in those 1940s and early 50s days cost just one token— ten cents! But you better have another token to get back or you would have a long walk or a sore thumb. In summer all the windows would be down and you could feel the alternating cool and warm, sometimes hot, breezes as the motorman cranked it up to 30 or 40 miles an hour going through back yards and alleys behind huge homes around the lakes. Sometimes the connector to the overhead electric lines would slip off and we would grind to a halt, the conductor would jump off, go around the rear of the car and deftly pull on the rope attached to the pulley until he had it back on and away we would go.

It was in the late 50s while I was attending the University of Minnesota that they began to disappear. I don’t remember when the last of the tracks were dug up, but I remember missing those old lumbering yellow metal and wood behemoths. The Minneapolis Streetcar was no more, replaced by ugly, shiny new smoke belching buses. This was progress?

A group of retired streetcar fanatics in recent years resurrected the Lake Harriet to Lake Calhoun line and brought back one of the old streetcars that you can ride for two bucks from the Lake Harriet Station to Lake Calhoun and back. This summer I took my kids and grandkids and great grandkids, (or rather, they took me) for their first ride on a Streetcar! They actually had a motorman and conductor who gave a little spiel about the Minneapolis Streetcar Museum they had founded and the history of this great mode of transportation. I hope we come to our senses soon about the way we get around. I’m all for bringing back the streetcars!

My Great Grandson Jack with his grandparents

Self—A Diamante

(A Diamante is a diamond-shaped 7 line poem beginning and ending with contrasting ideas)

Self

Creative, Impotent

Forming, Solidifying, Dissolving

Neuroses, Relations, Graveyard, Paradise

Learning, Knowing, Being

Final, Awesome

No-Self

 

L-1 one noun

L-2 two adjectives

L-3 three participles (ing)

L-4 four related nouns (2 each for lines 1 & 6)

L-5 three participles (ing)

L-6 two adjectives

L-7 one noun

Me As Landscape

    This is the farm in South Dakota where I spent my first 4 years

Rolling hills, rocky soil

needing to be cleared for planting and harvesting,

and a meandering stream.

Smell of new-cut hay in a partially mown field.

Cotton clouds floating by overhead

slowly, slowly.

Oat field of waving grain,

gentle breeze-blown,

as far as the eye can see.

Black earth, cool and inviting to be touched,

so it gets ground into the skin.

Good! Good!

My Aunt Mattie: A Beautiful Woman

My Aunt Mattie was a World War II “pen pal bride.” She must have been 18 or 19 and just out of high school when she and my Uncle Ralph started corresponding. He was stationed in the Aleutian Islands and I believe, if I have this right, he proposed before he came home at the end of the war and she said yes before they met. At least that is the story as I had it all these years. Mattie was about 10-12 years younger than my uncle and I remember the day they were married (in 1945?). They had wanted to get married at the Little Brown Church in Nashua, Iowa, about 12 miles from Charles City, the nearest town to the farm. So we all piled in cars and caravanned over to the Little Brown Church, located the minister and were all set for the knot to be tied right there, when the minister looked at their marriage license and announced “I can’t marry you! Your license was obtained in the next county!” We re-caravanned back to Charles City and drove with this line of cars all over town, going from church to church until we finally found a minister at home who would perform the ceremony. This was the beginning of a long and happy marriage that produced five children who grew up never doubting that they were loved.

But I wanted this to be about my Aunt Mattie. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and she always treated me as though I was one of her family, even after she had her own children. I suppose it was partly her being a “town” girl trying to adjust to the life of a “farm wife” and she knew I was my Uncle Ralph’s favorite nephew. And I was going through lots of turmoil at home. But she and I would sit on the steps for hours sometimes while she fascinated me with stories of her growing up in small town Iowa, she and her sister Mary who is now, I understand, in the final stages of her life. They have always been very close. Mattie herself has been in failing health in recent years and is trying to recover from a hospital stay as I write this. She did achieve acceptance by the Williams family and has been close to my mother and her two sisters, and held her own with my grandmother who was not an “easy accepter.” My Uncle Ralph passed away years ago and now Robert, Linda, Betty, Sharon, and Dennis, all who live close to her except for Betty, are caring for her the way she always cared for them. My Aunt Mattie still radiates warmth and beauty. I’ll never forget her.

Back to Plymouth Avenue

I was thinking about my old neighborhood again, where I said earlier that I ended up for 9^th through high school graduation. So I “Googled” Plymouth Avenue and so far only one photo came up, which is at the same location as the cartoon version I posted in an earlier blog. I am inserting it again along with the actual photo, which is from 1943. The first business visible on the left is the North Side Bakery, where my best friend Gary Lundquist was a baker for several years. In the middle of the next block is the Homewood Theatre, where we took in Saturday matinees for 12 cents and a dime for popcorn, and where I got so lost in the movieland dream world that my mother would on occasion have to come looking for me as I stayed for the second feature. And on the near corner is Strimling’s Drugstore, where we sat at the counter and slurped our cherry cokes and chocolate “phosphates.” The entire business district has been replaced after it was virtually burned out, I believe in the 1968 riots following the King assassination (correct me on the year if I have it wrong). There will never be another avenue like Plymouth or another neighborhood like the Old North Side. I do sometimes miss it.