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.

Within Close Range - Albert

Albert's scared the shit out of countless people over the years.

Despite this (or rather because of it), he's been an integral part of the family since Mom brought him home from a golf trip to Pebble Beach, California in the mid-seventies.

Ever since then, Albert's just hung around. 

Year, after year, after year... after year.

He's of average height,  a gray-haired gentleman, with a full beard - both of which hint of their ginger youth. 

He's originally from London, but he’s classic Scottish from the top of his thick, tousled hair to his argyle socks.

Always in Glen Plaid and corduroy.

In the pocket of his kinsmen’s plaid, for as long as we’ve known him, Albert’s always carried his pipe. In the same pocket, he used to keep a battered, old tin of tobacco - Prince Albert to be precise, the very man he was named after - until some sibling of mine borrowed the rusty, bright red tin (likely to store their weed) and never returned it to the old man.  

Albert never said a word. 

But that didn’t surprise any of us.

Because that is Albert.

Always in the background.

Still and silent.

Growing up with Albert around, we quickly learned two things: he was never where you thought he was, yet he was always somewhere.

You might find him sitting in the sun porch staring out at the lake, or lying beneath the covers in one of the boy’s twin beds. He might be in the front seat of a car one morning, or on one of the chaises, lounging under the stars, one night.

His familiar, but frightening figure, silhouetted in the shadows of the darkened house, frequently made my heart skip a beat as I snuck to the kitchen for a midnight snack, shuffled to bed after a midnight movie, or through the house after curfew.

But Albert never tattled.

It simply wasn’t him.

Most people never really knew who Albert was:  an uncle, a grandfather, an unsocial grump... a corpse?

He was our quiet sentry. 

His dark, squinted eyes ever-fixed on the room. 

Out the window. 

On you.

Never blinking.

As we speak, he’s probably sitting in the basement of Mia’s house, where he continues to startle guests just looking to use the exercise equipment.

A bit unnerving, our Albert, but dependably docile… and pliable.

Even after years of family and friends forcing him into the most unflattering positions.

For the amusement of others. 

Creepy?

Maybe.

But it's what we've been doing to Albert for forty-plus years.

And he's entertained us endlessly.

Besides, who knows where he might have ended up had Mom not told the manager of the Pebble Beach Pro Shop she loved him and wanted to take him home.

Surely he's been worth the $200 Dad paid for him… 

... and the battle of wills which likely took place between Mom and Dad before the shopkeeper lifted Albert out of the display window, packed him in a box, and shipped him off.

Within Close Range: Ice Cream and Convertibles

Dad loved convertibles.

And ice cream.

But who could blame him?

The thought of Baskin-Robbins’ thirty-one flavors made me giddy.

How many summer nights did I listen for to him call, “Who wants ice cream?” 

And when he did…

I was the first to the car, just behind Dad (who was secretly more excited than anyone). I'd quickly take possession of the coveted front seat when Mom chose a quiet hour alone over a waffle cone - which was most often.

While waiting for the others, Dad would push a button on the dashboard and I'd follow the fabric wall of black as it rolled behind me and out of sight, revealing the slowly fading daylight and cloudless, summer sky.

With everyone finally on board, off we’d go, down Shoreacres Road, as the last of the day’s golfers drifted down the final, shadowed fairway, toward the old clubhouse at the edge of the lake.

As we rolled along at country club speed, I’d look to the trees, heavy with green and I’d suck in the waning day and the humid, cool lake air, until we moved away from the lake and the air became the strong, sweet aroma of fresh cut grass and wild, roadside onions.

Once on Sheridan Road, Dad pressed on the gas pedal and summer was soon whizzing past, behind a veil of windblown hair, which I continuously plucked from my inescapable grin. 

It was a straight shot to Lake Forest from here.

Twenty minutes to ice cream, to the Baskin-Robbins in an old, brick building which stood at the corner of Deerpath Road and Bank Lane, just past the theatre where standing in line with Chris and her boyfriend, Rick, (to see a movie I can’t remember and likely shouldn’t have been seeing) I caught a brief glimpse of a naked man - a streaker - running past the crowd, before Chris cupped her hands over my eyes and Rick laughed louder than anyone.

Brightly illuminated by the two big windows on either side of its corner door, I'd look for the ice cream shop as soon as we turned onto Deerpath to see if there were a lot of people in line making their own difficult flavor decisions.

I liked it when it was crowded.

It gave me more time to stroll up and down the glass-walled freezer cabinets, inspecting gallon after gallon of colorful, ice-cold goodness.

Bubble Gum was an early favorite, until what I first saw as the added benefit of something left to chew when the ice cream was gone, turned out to be consistently flavorless morsels of rubber.

Hardly worth missing out on something chocolaty.

Rocky Road was almost irresistible, but often greedy for more, I’d order the Banana Royale, with its two scoops of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, chopped nuts, whipped cream and a Maraschino cherry on the very, very top. 

I never ate the bright red cherry which stained the peak of the whipped cream pile, but it reminded me of Uncle Louie and his big Oldsmobile, with its massive back window filled with baseball caps and his massive trunk filled with boxes and bottles, including the largest jar of Maraschino cherries I’d ever seen - I've yet to see its equal - which stood unopened in our kitchen cupboard for ages.

I liked thinking about Uncle Louie.

I also liked stuffing myself with Banana Royale.

Dad teased that I must have had a hollow leg, since my stomach couldn’t possibly fit an entire sundae. But somehow I managed.

Everyone had their favorite flavor and everyone's choices were as different as their personalities. Chris loved chocolate chip mint. Jim: butter pecan and pralines n' cream. Mia liked rainbow sherbet, but mostly because it coated her tongue and hardly-seen-a-toothbrush-all-summer teeth, which she liked to stare at it in the side view mirror as we passed beneath the just lit street lamps on our way home. Being the youngest, Mark took his ice cream cues from each of us, but usually ended up with more of the thirty-one flavors running down his chin and tiny hands than in his stomach.

Loath to re-admit offspring with fast melting ice cream into his always pristine car, Dad would lead what he called his "troop" toward Market Square where we'd admire the stores from a drippy distance. Even with a big bowl of ice cream in both hands, I'd peer through the large windows of Marshall Fields and think about how much I'd love to have some Frango Mints, which I could see stacked high atop their very own display table at the entrance of the old department store.

I’d scan the dimmed display cabinets and shiny glass countertops and think about the lady in the first floor makeup department who looked as if she'd been there since the store first opened in 1928. 

But it wasn't her age that fascinated me.

She fascinated me. 

She always wore black. 

Always in a dress, or a skirt and blouse. 

That perfectly matched her jet-black bob. 

Which was accentuated with a precisely penciled-in, black as pitch, widow's peak.

A steadfast fancy from her flapper days?

Her happy days?

Kitty-corner from the department store's stately, columned and canopied facade, a few hops past the old rec center, we’d look in the windows of Helander’s, the stationary store where I bought my first blank pages and filled them with my first independent words. 

Past this was Kiddles, with its floor to ceiling bicycles and basketballs, football helmets, baseball t-shirts and everything in between. Where Mom and Dad made someone's day when they purchased bicycles for all seven of us.

Certain shops around the square enticed me on these lazy, summer nights, while others, even though their faces were familiar and reassuring, intimidated me for having never stepped inside. 

Market Square Bakery was not one of those places. 

I knew it inside and outside, where the same old, dusty display cakes sat in the same, old dusty display windows for years. Where just through the door, the smell of fresh baked sugary treats hugged you like an aunt and made after-school errands with Mom tolerable. 

On these walks around the old, historic square, we’d scan the streets and the grassy center for a friend among the small crowds gathered around the fountain and benches. Rarely was the time when we didn't see somebody we knew relishing the cool of the evening.

The sounds of strangers laughing.

The chirp of the crickets that accompanied the street lamps and the dark.

Their own ice cream treats.

Our house being on the northern edge of familiarity, the nights we wandered around the square with our Baskin-Robbins’ were some of the rarer moments during my childhood when I felt part of the community, the camaraderie.

So I made my Banana Royale last as we crossed Western Avenue to visit the depot, hoping to see a train before we left the platform. I’d savor every moment in every bite as we rounded the square, passing real estate offices where lighted photos of formidable houses made window-shoppers dream… big.

As the last of the ice cream disappeared and eyes began to droop, the Lake Forest Sports Shop (a mecca for North Shore preppies) told me we were almost to the car, but not until we passed The Left Bank, which was never anything to me but Pasquesi’s; where for innumerable years, after long absences and serious cravings for a truly Sloppy Joe or creamy cheese dog, the bell on the door would announce my arrival and looking up from his tiny counter, in the back of his simple, purple sandwich shop, Mr. P. would raise his head and ever greet me as if I was a long lost relative finally returning home, where I belonged.

At Pasquesi’s, I always belonged.

On the quiet ride home, with the sky full of stars and fields full of fireflies, I’d lay back in the back seat (having had to relinquish the front for a sibling demanding their turn), lower myself from the cool, night air, and dream about what flavor I might get next time.

  

Within Close Range: Tiny Terrors

I'd save every penny I could in order to buy tiny furniture and food, pictures and plastic puppies for my very first household: a two-story, six room, pale yellow Colonial with black shutters, rose-filled window boxes and a square footage of about 3.

I’d place my tiny, new items in their tiny, little places, house proud and satisfied, and then move on to other interests. Returning some time later to admire each new addition to my dollhouse collection, I’d regularly find that someone (Jim) had committed tiny house horrors in my brief absence.

One such day still haunts my childhood memories.

As I came around the front facade, having just fake-watered my fake flowers,  the first thing I saw was a pant-less father indelicately on top of mother in the four poster bed upstairs, while in the bathroom, the next room over, the baby was headfirst in the toilet.

In the kitchen just below, I soon discovered grandmother’s old, grey-haired head had been stuck in the oven of the cast iron stove. (Despite the fact that it was a wood burning model, James.)

I can still see the soles of her sensible grandma shoes.

My eyes scanned right to the living room, where I found the little girl of my little world.

Sitting at the piano.

Hands at the keys.

Staring straight ahead.

I shivered, then wondered about the boy.

The only place left was the attic.

I slowly lifted the shingle roof of my little, pale yellow, Colonial house with black shutters and rose-filled windows boxes.

He was no where to be scene.

Then I saw the trunk.

Oh, the humanity.

Within Close Range - The Phone at the End of the Hall

The phone at the end of the hall, right next to my room, occasionally came to life in the middle of the night; its merciless metal bells clanging, resounding off the tall walls of the winding front steps and down the long, carpet-less hallway leading from one end of the upstairs to the next.

Startled from my dreams and tormented by its unanswered ring, I'd crawl over whichever dog or cat was hogging most of the bed that night and shuffle toward the noise, hoping to get to the phone before another blast of the bell pierced my brain.

Fumbling for the receiver - and words - I'd already know that the only kind of news that comes in the middle of the night is usually bad.

Or at least not good.

And if I was answering the phone, that meant that Mom and Dad didn't, and I was about to be made the reluctant messenger.

Sleepless in the hours that followed.

Anxious to hear the garage door rumble and footsteps - two sets.

Hoping the anger and the lecture had happened on the ride home and details would come over a bowl of cereal in the morning.

Happy everyone was back home and in bed.

And all was quiet again.

Within Close Range - The Universe Upstairs

Mom and Dad’s bedroom suite was on the first floor of the house in Shoreacres (at the southern end of everything) allowing them to frequently escape to its sunlit, coziness and away from the five, wild seeds they chose to sow. 

This left the entire second floor almost entirely adult-free, except for the occasional laundry delivery from Mom and the less occasional drop in (more like official visit) from Dad; usually the unfortunate result of winter restlessness or weekend thunderstorms keeping him from the golf course.

We’d only know of his plans when we heard, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”  sound from below, at which point all present would scatter from the kid’s TV room to our respective bedrooms, where each of us would begin a frenzied attempt to hide all clothing, toys, towels, glasses, plates, books and general shit we’d left strewn everywhere.

Depending on his level of bother, Dad might only scan the surface of the bedrooms and bathrooms. It was something each of us quietly prayed for as he passed dressers, drawers, desks and closets, cluttered and crammed with quickly concealed crap. If Dad’s heart really wasn’t in it, he might demand some dusting and vacuuming, to be inspected later (which would likely not occur), and then disappear below and we’d half-heartedly obey before returning to reruns, twitching on each other, and/or littering.

If our luck went a.w.o.l. (to a place that didn’t smell of dirty laundry and dog breath) and Dad was disgusted and determined to delve further by sliding open a closet door… an entire Saturday afternoon would be spent re-folding, re-organizing, re-inspecting, and re-revising.

And finally,  promising the impossible - to keep our rooms clean.

Other than these brief and infrequent invasions, the upstairs was our universe, our private world of fun and games and funny voices, where Jim’s rolled up socks turned into stink bombs of such infamy that as soon as you saw him take off his shoes… 

… you ran.

You ran as fast as your stockinged feet along a polished wood floor could take you.

It was also where fuzzy, red carpeting assisted you in shocking a sibling repeatedly one moment, then turned to molten lava, the next; where the chairs and tables became bridges, and the convertible sofa, an island, where captives and carpet monsters fought to the death in battle after battle.

In the universe upstairs, sloped-ceiling closets and dark crawlspaces - too-small-for-adults places - became secluded hideaways where we could bring pillows and posters, flashlights and favorite stuffed animals, and write secrets and swear words on the 2 x 4s and plaster board; and listen to Mom in the kitchen, until the heater or ac switched on and the great metal shafts filled with air and filled our ears with rumbling.

At the very top of the back steps, behind a tiny door (not more than three feet square), was a favorite, secret, upstairs place. 

Just inside, above the small door, Jim built a spaceship’s control panel from old electrical outlets and switches found in the basement and the barn. With Mark as his co-pilot and a vivid imagination as his rocket fuel, he would rally us to climb into his crawlspace capsule. 

I’d sit back in the darkness, surrounded by boxes of memories -  Mom’s heirloom wedding dress at my elbow and Christmas decorations as my seat - anxious for the countdown.

Excited for blast off.

For leaving the earth far behind.

Calling to his co-pilot to flick switches Jim had labelled with a big, black magic marker, then moving his hands up and down his own duct-taped controls, I’d hear the sputters and rumbles of Jim’s vocal-powered rockets.

Hugging my big, Pooh Bear, I’d watch our fearless pilot, in the beam of a dangling flashlight, lean back and call to his unlikely crew through the cup of his hand, “Hang on! Here we go! Ten… Nine… Eight…”

Jim’s rumbles would begin to rise.

“Seven… Six… Five… Four…”

I could feel the crawlspace shake and rattle.

“Three… Two… One… BLAST OFF!”

I’d giggle and squeeze that silly, old bear and close my eyes to see the fast-approaching cosmos…

And I’d float in the infinite black.

In the sea of stars.

Until Jim shouted, “Meteors!” and all hell would break loose in our top-of-the-stairs cockpit.

Rescue usually came in the form of the hallway light cutting through the cracks and the dark - and the meteors - and Mom calling, “Dinner!”

Or much, much worse…

Dad calling, “INSPECTION in ten minutes!”