Within Close Range - Dinner at the Celanos'

In our house, dinner meant waiting for Dad.

It meant setting the table in the dining room, with its giant flour de lis wallpaper; with placemats and napkins and neatly set silverware; pitchers of water and plates for your salad.

And it meant waiting.

As smells from the kitchen - from sizzling pans or large simmering pots - wafted through the house like an intoxicating fog, making it hard to concentrate on anything other than the clock and the driveway, where we turned our attentions every few minutes hoping to see Dad’s headlights weave their way the final feet home.

Stomachs gurgling.

Tempers shortening.

Dad never seemed to notice that his famished children hadn’t eaten for hours; never seemed pressured, when shedding his suit, to rush to the table.

To get the meal going.

Dinner began when Dad was ready to sit, to eat, to hear of our days.

At our table of seven, there were two simple requirements in order to be part of the conversation, to be able to tell a story, a joke, talk about your day, or the dogs, your needs, or sibling-related peeves.

One: interrupt while the thought is still fresh your mind.

Two: speak louder than the loudest person speaking.

None of these rules, mind you, applied to Mom and, especially Dad, who spoke and you listened.

Not all siblings were comfortable or capable of carrying out these terms, which usually meant Chris, Jim and I dominated the conversations; while Mia and Mark sat silently, playing with the food, making faces, defending their honor.

Waiting for dinner to be over, so they could quietly slip away.

But in our house, in order to leave the table, we asked to be excused.

Depending on the day, or Dad’s mood, we might be able to scatter after doing clean-up (for which the girls were entirely responsible), or we might be required to hang around until Dad decided he’d had enough of his disorderly descendants.

I remember a night in particular, when Mark, quiet as usual, quickly downed a few measly bites from his plate and asked to be excused from the table. 

It was a radical move.

Ill-considered and premature.

Or so I thought, until Dad allowed it.

Still contemplating Mark’s gutsy move and wishing I’d thought of it first,  I was suddenly distracted - we all were - by the unusual amount of commotion coming from the boys’ bedroom, directly above.

Strange, everyone agreed, Mark usually went straight from table to T.V.

With a unified shrug, we returned to our plates, until all eyes were drawn through the dining room windows which overlooked the back lawn, the bluff and Lake Michigan.

To the darkening sky, where an airplane was crossing.

Which wouldn’t have been so unusual.

Had it not been on fire.

Smoke billowing from its tail.

Mom let out a little shriek.

Hearts jumped.

Until the plane got stuck on the wire Mark had strung from his bedroom window to an old oak in the backyard, twenty feet away.

In a flash, the tiny, tissue-paper-stuffed fighter jet (an F4 Phantom to be precise) - which Mark spent hours building, days admiring and the day high-wiring - became a wee inferno as the stalled model’s flammable glue ignited.

Our reflections in the glass were stunned. 

And a little confused.

I looked to Dad.

Who looked unsure of how to react. 

But his eyes couldn’t hide it.

And when, to everyone’s surprise, Mark quietly returned to his place at the table, Dad allowed a smile to creep to his lips.

Mark’s shoulders’ instantly relaxed.

Siblings offered their congratulations.

“Nice job, Kid.”

“Twisted, but effective.”

As we filed outside to examine the smoldering wreckage, I could see Mark was pleased.

He’d impressed a tough crowd.

Dare I say it? Made us proud. 

Except for Mom…

She “didn’t think it was funny at all.”

Within Close Range: Betsy's Dad's Den

It came to mind from the aroma of a candle Mia sent me. Each time I lit it, the rich, earthy fragrance brought hazy images briefly into view, only to vanish amid so many forgotten days.

I'd light the candle again, and back they'd come.

Out of focus, but strong.

One day, with the faint but familiar fragrance still lingering, still teasing my middle-aged mind, I reached for the candle and turned it over, hoping the label would reveal something - anything - that might re-animate my mislaid memories.

And there it was, my answer.  Tobacco.

Almost immediately, a clear vision from those indistinct days came to me; a beautiful memory of a place I revered without really knowing why.

Instantly, I was back in Mr. Gould's den, tucked in the corner of the Gould's grey-green, two chimney, Colonial, which sat a short block from the edge of Lake Michigan.

You could find it by heading straight east down Scranton Avenue, the main street of Lake Bluff's hardly-a-downtown-business-district. The old house sat in a quiet spot with tree-filled lots and winding ravines and looked as if it had been there almost as long as the venerable trees which commanded the neighborhood.

Stepping into the Gould's house was always something of a marvel to me, like stepping into Mr Peabody's Wayback Machine and setting the dial to "a long time ago."

Everything from its old plaster and uneven, wood floors, to its cozy nooks and small, sunlit rooms, filled with musty, dusty, fascinating things, incited my imagination and a lifelong love of history.

And oh, how I loved the kitchen - old bricks and beams - and always smelling of fresh-baked bread.

After school, Betsy and I would cut thick slices off a golden brown loaf cooling on the tall counter and sink our teeth into the still warm, chewy insides that hinted of honey and butter and left our fingers powdered with flour and my stomach hungry for more.

With final crusts of bread stuffed into our mouths, we'd climb the steep, narrow, crooked flight of stairs to Betsy's room, straight ahead. Two rooms, really. One being her bedroom, the other, a small, summer porch with walls of windows, which generations of restless sleepers swung open to invite in the cool lake breezes during the dependably hot and humid Midwest summer nights.

I could feel its cots-and-cotton-nightgowns' past.

I could hear the old Victrola winding down - tinny, scratchy and lazy to finish; finally surrendering to the cicadas in the tall trees singing loudly for their mates.

Before the piles of fabric, patterns and other sewing stuff cluttered the small, bright room at the corner of the Gould's old Colonial on Scranton Avenue, where we'd spread out across Betsy's high bed and talk dreamily about our four favorite men: John, Paul, George and Ringo; and spin their albums until daylight left and my ride home appeared.

The rest of the upstairs was a mystery to me, being two-thirds occupied by teen brothers, whose rare appearances and even rarer visits to Betsy's room usually lasted briefly and annoyed her thoroughly.

It simply scared the shit out of me.

On occasion, when Betsy sought out her dad during my visits, we'd wander back down the creaky, old stairs, through the dark entry hall (which no one ever seemed to enter through) to the one and only place I ever recall seeing Betsy's Dad.

His den.

With a timid rap on the solid, old door, we'd hear his gentle voice give permission to enter this space.

His special place.

His sanctuary.

And it was here, as the door opened and I entered behind my best friend, HERE that the smell of sweet and spicy, earthy and smoky, became a part of me.

As did Mr. Gould, at his desk, with his pipe, sweatered like the perfect professor.

Ever engaging his hands and his mind.

Creating.

Drawing.

Building dreams.

And ships in bottles.

Magnificent, masted vessels of extraordinary detail, masterfully constructed, delicately painted and meticulously engineered within ridiculously constrained confines. When finished, the newest ship would join the miniature armada that floated on a sea of books on the den's wooden shelves, near paneled walls and paned windows with mustard-colored drapes.

Each night,  Betsy once told me, her dad would invariably enter his den, close those long, yellow curtains and sit behind his desk where he busied his hands and blocked out the world. Yet each time and every time a car drove by, Mr. Gould would stop whatever he was doing, draw the drapes back - just enough to watch the car pass - and then close them again and return to his task.

And his deliciously fragrant pipe.

And his secret snacks - Pepsi and Fritos - hidden beneath his desk.

And there he'd stay, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, making beautiful things for make-believe worlds.

How I would have loved to explore the shelves, the books, the ships in bottles, the glass-topped coffee table filled with dusty shells and sticky sand from spilled milks.

The mind of this quiet, creative man.

Out of reach as a child, these thoughts now reach out to me.

Calling me back to the old, two-chimney, grey-green Colonial on Scranton Avenue.

To Betsy's Dad's den.

To his ships, his pipe and its sweet aroma.

To fresh baked bread.

And lazy afternoons.

With best friends.