JULY 31, 2023 – When you’re fifty, three years go fast. When you’re not even 10, three years are a big chunk of your life to that point. So it seemed for me in the summer of ’64, when Mother, Jenny and I took the train out to New Jersey for a long visit. My trip out there aboard Pete’s truck three years before seemed like ancient history. I’d been just a kid back then. Now I was on the threshold of manhood, whereas Jenny was still very much a kid. This was her very first trip to New Jersey, and I saw a ready role for myself as the big brother, for whom New Jersey and all of its hustle and bustle would be “old hat.”
My leadership, as it were, began as soon as we boarded the Burlington Northern Zephyr in Minneapolis. The sleek, shiny cars of the Zephyr looked faster than the dark, two-toned green cars of Great Northern’s North Coast Limited, the Zephyr’s primary competition between the Twin Cities and Chicago, or the sluggish looking yellow and maroon cars of the Milwaukee Road, the other competitor, and the one favored by Gaga when she ventured west to visit us. For weeks prior to the journey, I had dreamed about sitting up in the Zephyr’s “Vista Dome” and taking in the scenery all around on the way to Chicago. For optimal viewing, I figured it was important to secure the seats at the very front of the dome car, so we wouldn’t have to look between the heads of people in front of us. I was even prepared to butt in front of grown-ups if that was what it took. I explained all of this to Jenny, who was a willing participant, probably not because she too wanted a view, but because she wisely deferred to her elder’s insistence. I don’t remember Mother sitting with us. I think she was too busy visiting with other passengers down in the coach seats. There was never a stranger Mother didn’t find worthy of conversation.
For the Chicago-Newark leg of the journey, we switched to the dark burgundy, tired looking carriages of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It had no Vista Dome cars, so we had to view the scenery through the grimy windows by our coach seats. I wondered why we didn’t have a room on the Pullman car, and Mother said something like, “They’re too expensive,” which, in turn made me wonder why Gaga and Grandpa hadn’t offered to pay, since they were rich and we were taking the train to visit them.
Grandpa and Uncle Bruce picked us up at the train station in Newark, and I remember they talked quite incessantly as they gathered up the luggage and hauled it to Grandpa’s big new Cadillac. It all put me in a good mood, for I knew that what lay ahead was far more activity than was typical during summers back in Anoka, Minnesota. For one thing, we’d be attending the New York World’s Fair, and there would be weekend trips to Hamburg in Connecticut, swimming at the beach, rides in Uncle Bruce’s new convertible Buick Electra, a doting bunch of workers in the warehouse office, rides in Uncle Bruce’s delivery truck when he picked up and delivered carpets, and a chance to work the switch that raised and lowered rugs in the rug-cleaning drying room, a steady stream of big trucks to watch driving on and off the scale on the driveway between the house and the warehouses, and pretty much all the television we cared to watch—a real treat, considering that we had no television back in Anoka[1].
Jenny and I got along pretty well mostly because she went along with most of my ideas of fun. The first opportunity came the day after we arrived. Uncle Bruce took us with him in his brand new white-with-red-interior Buick Electra convertible to run some errands. It was hot and sunny out, so he let us unsnap the clips that held the convertible top to the frame of the windshield and push the switch that lowered the canopy into its hold behind the backseat. I then hopped in front and Jenny climbed into the back seat of the car that would have elevated our status considerably back in Anoka.
We sailed out the driveway, down the street onto some busy artery, and into a busy, neighboring community. Uncle Bruce pulled up to a red traffic light, and while we waited interminably for the light to change, he started whistling well into his repertoire of the University of Minnesota fight song, an American in Paris and Gloria in Excelsis Deo. I liked the way he whistled such light-hearted music. Dad whistled too, but it was usually serious music—a piece by Schubert or the theme from the slow movement of a Beethoven symphony. Uncle Bruce was more my kind of grown-up—driving a new convertible and whistling catchy tunes. I decided to show him that I was light-hearted too.
“Light’s green,” I said, seeing, knowing, that it was still red as could be. Taking my word for it, Uncle Bruce pressed the accelerator and launched the big Electra smack into the bustling intersection. Brakes screeched and horns blared on both sides of the car. If I had been a moron for having pulled such a stunt, it took less than a nano-second to realize it.
Uncle Bruce floored the car till we were clear of the intersection, and once the G-force dropped back to normal, he said “Never, ever do that again!” However, I detected more a sense of past fright than present anger, and I struggled to stifle a laugh. I looked over my shoulder at Jenny, whose mouth and eyes spelled “O!” She let out a laugh, and I had to let one out too. Uncle Bruce resumed his whistling.
On the next occasion for mischief, Jenny was an active participant, not an innocent backseat observer. We were on a mission aboard Uncle Bruce’s new Corvair delivery van, which was sharply painted in the United Van Lines colors, with Holman Rug Cleaning – Repairs and Storage written in bold lettering on the side. It looked almost sporty. Anyway, Jenny and I went along for the ride while Uncle Bruce delivered cleaned rugs, each nicely wrapped in crinkly brown wrapping paper with an I.D. tag wired to the end. At one stop in a leafy neighborhood, he took quite awhile. Apparently a customer had engaged him in conversation or questioning, and after a time, Jenny and I grew a bit bored. The van was parked along a boulevard lined with trees, which had branches down below the height of Uncle Bruce’s van.
As so often happens with kids, boredom bred mischief, and Jenny and I got the bright idea of pulling a branch of a tree well into the van, then rolling up our window to pinch tight against foliage. On our first try, we secured only a foot or so of the branch. “Let’s get more,” I said.
“Yeah, let’s!” said Jenny. She rolled down the window and I pulled more of the branch in. She helped, and together, we managed to get so much of the branch, the end of it touched the floor of the van in front of the front passenger seat. I closed the window as tight as I could. Eventually, Uncle Bruce returned. Of course, Jenny and I thought what we had done was absolutely hilarious, and we were all a-giggle, certain that Uncle Bruce would notice, whereupon we could have a hearty laugh. To our amazement, he didn’t notice. He simply turned the key in the ignition, let out the clutch and stepped on the gas. To our astonishment, the van tore the branch right off the tree and dragged the poor, twelve-foot arm of the innocent arbor down the street with us.
Jenny and I were in tears, we laughed so hard, though I did feel sorry for the tree. The odd thing is that I don’t remember that Uncle Bruce reacted much at all. He drove a good block before the commotion from the passenger seat caused him to take notice that something was awry. He simply pulled the van over to the side and stopped. I rolled down the window while Uncle Bruce got out of the van, walked around and pulled the branch out of the van and tossed it onto the boulevard. A moment later, we were on our way again. He never said a thing.
* * *
Jenny and I both hung around the warehouse office, where several of the office workers took a shine to us—Mrs. Orgonik, with her heavily powdered face, smoker’s voice and painted nails was a favorite. Despite her tough-sounding, New Jersey accent and her uncompromising exchanges with probably equally tough-sounding, New Jersey accented voices on the other end of the phone, she was nothing but kind and accommodating toward the boss’s grandchildren. Mrs. Dabal, the woman whose desk was next to Mrs. Orgonik, was also kind toward us, but whereas Mrs. Orgonik actually seemed to know what she was talking about, Mrs. Dabal sounded more like a know-it-all, and even to an unknowing 10-year old, Mrs. Dabal didn’t have the same level of credibility that Mrs. Orgonik did. I noticed that Mrs. Dabal’s desk was also by far the neatest in the office.
There were many other personalities, too. “Freddy” Mier, the bookkeeper, who took short, quick steps, as if (I imagined) Grandpa wound him up every day with a giant key; Bud Holman—Mother and Uncle Bruce’s cousin, who served as dispatcher; and “Peter,” a younger man, who wore a suit and was friendly toward Jenny and me. One morning Peter invited me to lunch, which I interpreted to be a sit-down affair at some local restaurant but which, to my disappointment, turned out to be an over-the-counter hot dog at the little lunch joint across the street from the office.
There was always lots of activity in the office. Phones ringing incessantly, truck drivers checking in and checking out, customers, and others whose roles and identities weren’t altogether clear to me.
I would also wander into the garage area, and when I was feeling particularly adventurous, I would even go back as far as the mechanics’ area, where men in greasy clothes worked on the trucks. They all seemed friendly enough and were always in good humor. When a newcomer asked a veteran who I was, the veteran replied, “He’s Griz’s grandson.” It was at about that time that I noticed a calendar on the wall of the service area. The calendar featured a big, threatening bear, rearing up on its hind legs. With a blue ink pen, someone had written “Griz” in the space next to the open jaws of the bear and had drawn an arrow pointing at the beast. I wasn’t sure if the markings mocked the boss or showed a fear of him, and for a time I worried what Grandpa might think of the mechanics if he saw their calendar. As I would learn many years later, that was not the sort of thing that Grandpa would get upset about. He was not a petty man. And as far as “mocking” or “fear” was concerned, I learned too that neither applied. Grandpa’s employees pretty much worshipped him.
* * *
Thursday was rug-cleaning day, when Uncle Bruce and an assistant would crank up the industrial-sized shampooing machine and clean a 20 or 30 nice big oriental carpets for customers who lived within a 10-mile radius of Holman Corner. The whole operation fascinated me, and I was impressed by how Uncle Bruce was in total command of what seemed to be a fairly complicated and nerve-rattling process. The machine itself looked like a large piece of factory equipment. It included a 20-foot wide drum, perhaps four feet in diameter, set within a large, metal framework fitted with a complex arrangement of pipes, valves, dials, and hoses. A row of little, black scrub brushes rested atop the big drum. At one end of the machine was a set of metal steps, which led to a narrow mezzanine of metal grating running the length of the big contraption.
In the first stage of operations, Uncle Bruce and his assistant would drag, carry, and otherwise manhandle the carpets into an area right behind the cleaning machine. It was not work for the lazy or physically unfit. Next, Uncle Bruce would climb up on the mezzanine and accept large containers of soap from the assistant. After pouring the soup into a big holding tank, Uncle Bruce would hop down and pull down the large lever on the electric motor mounted on the far end of the machine. As it thumped and clanged and clattered to life, Uncle Bruce shouted out commands, and together, he and the assistant flipped a variety of switches and turned and twisted the confusing assortment of valves. The needles of the dials flickered, and the row of scrub brushes shivered vigorously back and forth. Years later, the rug-cleaning operation would spring from my memory when I watched a submarine crew in a World War II movie frantically closing valves and shouting at each other as they prepared their damaged vessel for an emergency dive.
As the machine noisily chugged and clattered its way to full momentum, Uncle Bruce and the assistant would each stand at one end of the machine, lift a large carpet into position and then slap the leading edge onto the drum. Little spikes on the drum would then grab the underside of the carpet and feed it into the frenetically eager row of scrub brushes. Then, with me close on their heels, the two men would scramble out of the room that housed the machine and run over to the capacious drying room on the other side. There they’d pull the carpet slowly out of the backside of the cacophonous machine, drag the rug across the floor to the next available drying bar, hook the rug over the teeth on the bar, and raise the bar some 16 feet in the air by way of an electric hoist that ran on narrow rails along the side of the drying room.
It would be decades later before I learned that the whole design and construction of the hoist system in the drying room was the ingenious work of Grandpa and Uncle Bruce—a very rare occasion of collaborative effort on their part, for they never seemed to agree on much of anything, and their communication was always minimalist. Given Uncle Bruce’s native intelligence and his overwhelming command of the rug cleaning operation, I had no reason to doubt that he had had a hand in the development of such a clever system. However, it was in marked contrast to his penchant for eccentric, jerry-rigged approaches to all other things mechanical.
At any rate, the hoist system was simple enough for a supervised 10-year old to operate, and Uncle Bruce gladly showed me the ropes and let me hook and unhook the cables to each hoist bar and raise the rugs by pressing the buttons on the little machine on rails. It was a fun way to earn a little pocket money, which Uncle Bruce generously paid me for my efforts.
* * *
As far as I could tell during our stay in New Jersey that summer, Uncle Bruce worked hard at the rug-cleaning business, but he didn’t keep nearly the hours that Grandpa did. Grandpa was up and out of the house (after a bowl of puffed rice and milk[2]) long before Jenny and I were out of bed, and often Uncle Bruce would still be eating breakfast by the time we appeared. Invariably, he would be pacing back and forth across the kitchen as he scooped cold cereal out of a his bowl, which he held close to his chin, and munched the cereal noisily.
Both men would return to the house for lunch and again at 5:00 when the town horn blasted twice from its rooftop perch on the Rutherford borough hall, which sat on the corner diagonally across from the corner of the Holman property. If you weren’t prepared for it, the sound would scare you right out of your thoughts, but I noticed that Gaga, Grandpa and Uncle Bruce had grown so accustomed to it, none of them flinched at the sound of it.[3] Before supper, Uncle Bruce would repair to his room upstairs and Grandpa would recline back in his lounge chair in the library and read the two daily papers to which the household subscribed.[4] I remember his necktie stretched out over his big stomach (the rest of him being rather slim, actually) like a snake stretched out for a nap and Grandpa’s feet in black, well-shined shoes and his ankles crossed, clad in thin, expensive looking stockings, resting on the extended footrest.
At precisely 6:00 Gaga would call Uncle Bruce and Grandpa to dinner. “Whoo-hoo! Junyah! Griz!” came her cry from the kitchen. Mother would be there too, working strictly as the assistant. We’d all then assemble in the dining room, where Gaga would serve up a full-course, roast, veal or lamb dinner, all served from an elegant, mahogany cart, which she’d roll from the kitchen through the pantry and up alongside the table that was set with the finest china and silverware. The conversation would run the range of topics, I remember, from, local politics to challenges that had arisen in the office that day. Appetites were always robust, and Gaga’s cooking never disappointed. If she came from a very different mold from our Swedish grandmother, who, as a domestic in the homes of the flour and merchandising barons of Minneapolis[5], had learned all the culinary and dining refinements of the aristocratic class, Gaga herself had actually come from the moneyed class, and she was well acquainted with how a meal should be presented. Even as a 10-year old kid, I could appreciate the dining formalities that Gaga maintained every weekday.
Invariably, Grandpa would be off somewhere soon after dinner and dessert were over. He belonged to innumerable civic, political and business organizations, and there never seemed to be an evening when he didn’t have a meeting to attend. With Uncle Bruce, it was quite a different story. He would be off somewhere, but it wasn’t to an organizational gathering. On occasion Jenny and I would get to go too.
The routine was generally the same. We’d drive to the apartment of his friend Frank in a neighboring community. As I remember, it was the upper part of an old duplex, and the access was by way of an exterior staircase. Frank was a friendly guy, about Uncle Bruce’s age, and on the outside of his right ankle, he sported a Dennis the Menace tattoo, which he revealed once to Jenny and me. It made quite an impression, for I had never seen a tattoo before except on our great-uncle Sigurd, the Norwegian seaman married to our Swedish grandmother’s sister, but his tattoo was something nautical and on his outer, upper arm, where you’d expect to see a tattoo, because that’s where Popeye wore his tattoo, and like Popeye’s, Sigurd’s tattoo was simply the badge of a sailor. Dennis the Menace on a grown man’s ankle—now that was a whole different matter, and in my mind, the fact that Uncle Bruce was friends with a man with such a tattoo on his ankle elevated Uncle Bruce quite above the staid, conservative ways of the rest of the grown-ups in our family.
In any event, we’d hang out at Frank’s place for a while, and then, after conversation lagged, we’d all pile back into Uncle Bruce’s convertible and head for a shopping mall of one sort or another. We’d browse around, and on each occasion, Frank and Uncle Bruce would indulge Jenny and me by following us into the toy section. Each time, we’d be allowed to select something. One time, I remember, I picked a cowboy hat. It was during my “Western” phase, and the hat itself struck my fancy. The little pair of plastic, silver cowboy boots and the “LBJ” that dangled from a little pin on the front of the hat didn’t mean much to me, and I didn’t understand when the next day one of Grandpa’s employees saw me wearing the hat and said with a laugh, “Don’t let your Grandpa catch you in that hat.” It was around that time when I learned that Grandpa was a charter member of the Bergen County Republican Party[6].
After shopping, we’d drive to a soda fountain someplace, where Uncle Bruce would treat everyone to a root beer float or milkshake. It was on one of those trips when Jenny and I discovered you could tear the end of the wrapper off a straw, point it at someone and then blow the wrapper into the person’s face. Frank and Uncle Bruce let us do that with impunity, something I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the family allowing. We also learned that summer that if you made someone laugh while they were sucking on a straw buried in a milkshake, the milkshake would come out their nose.
I don’t know what became of Frank. We never heard anything about him after that summer. Did he move away? Did he and Uncle Bruce have a falling out, or did they just drift apart? But I now wonder too, where they met, and what did they do when Jenny and I weren’t around.
* * *
Every Friday evening, we’d follow the same routine. Right after the borough horn announced it was 5:00, Jenny and I would lug our suitcases out to the driveway, where Grandpa would load them along with four of five of his own briefcases into the trunk of the Cadillac. With Uncle Bruce in his convertible driving behind us, Mother, Jenny and I would ride with Gaga and Grandpa, bound for Connecticut. Before long, we’d stop at a Howard Johnson’s, which was always a treat, because back in Minnesota, we rarely got to eat out. After a full meal and ice cream for dessert, we’d set out for the rest of the two-hour journey. Sometimes Jenny and I rode with Uncle Bruce the rest of the way, the convertible top down, the windows up, and the star-studded sky above us.
Most of the trip was along on the freeway, but across the Connecticut River from Old Saybrook, we’d turn and drive north on the winding, two-lane road, and the closer we got to our destination, I noticed, the closer the big oak trees, the old stone walls and the ancient farmhouses got to the edge of the road. If things in New Jersey were old, the countryside in Connecticut—especially in the dark—seemed much older still and remote and mysterious.
The Escape Hatch, as the sign identified the house, was on a broad plot of land just off Old Cove Road up the hill from the hamlet of Hamburg on the east edge of the upper part of Hamburg Cove. The view was magnificent.[7] The dwelling was a modest, two story abode, clad with cedar shakes, with a double-window dormer on each side of the hip roof, an enclosed porch on the side that faced the lane along the front of the property and an open porch on the opposite side of the house, which overlooked the high bank on the south side of the Cove. Being closed up most of the time, the house had a musty smell, which I didn’t mind, because it seemed to go with the remoteness and mystery that distinguished the peaceful, picturesque surroundings from all the hustle and bustle back in Rutherford and its environs in the shadow of New York City.
The Escape Hatch, had been built by George B. Holman and his wife, Ethelyn (whose ancestors reaching back to Colonial times had settled in the area), in 1911 and was originally part of a larger parcel that had been divided among Gaga and Grandpa, Grandpa’s brother, Henry and his wife, and other relatives of George. After George’s retirement from the business, the place had become his “hobby grounds,” where he cultivated rose bushes, a vegetable garden and a small orchard[8].
In keeping with the simplicity of country living, the house was sparsely furnished and austerely appointed. The kitchen was small and contained limited amenities, but except for breakfast, we ate out for the rest of the weekend meals. One of Gaga’s great pleasures, actually, was dining out, and every Sunday we would go to the Dock ‘n Dine right next to a pier at the mouth of the Connecticut River down in Old Saybrook. The dining room served as Grandpa’s weekend office, and I don’t remember ever eating there. The living room of The Escape Hatch, with a beautiful stone fireplace and chimney, had potential, I suppose, but the furniture was old and uninviting. A small room off the living room served as my sleeping quarters. Upstairs there were three more bedrooms and a bathroom. I was impressed by how easily Gaga made the transition from the big, elegant house in Rutherford to the country house in Hamburg.
Before Jenny and I were even stirring on the morning after our arrival at The Escape Hatch, Grandpa had already unpacked the reams of paperwork from his briefcases and appeared to be hard at work at the dining room table. When we appeared, he would look up and give us a friendly acknowledgment, which usually took the form of a smile and a “Gd mrnng, gd mrnng!” Later, he would take us for drives through the countryside, pointing out the homes and haunts of long-gone relatives and acquaintances. I also remember occasions when he would sit out on the lawn with Gaga, Mother, and Uncle Bruce and read the Sunday edition of The New York Times. He also mowed the lawn, since Uncle Bruce, according to Gaga, had “awful hay fever.”
On warm, sunny afternoons, we’d go down to a small, secluded beach at a spot on the east shore of the Connecticut River five minutes from The Escape Hatch[9]. I remember Grandpa swimming with us. He looked quite at ease in the water, and it was the only time I ever saw him engaging in anything remotely recreational. He made great sport of floating on his back, spreading out his arms and sticking his toes out of the water as he lifted his head. With his lips as stiff as ever, he would then call out to Jenny and me. “Lk, lk.” It was the closest he ever came to being whimsical.
Mother was just as comfortable in the water as Grandpa was, but I don’t remember Uncle Bruce spending much time in the river. Jenny and I made great fun “riding the waves” created by the over-sized yachts that plied the waters along the beach.
On the occasion of one of our beach outings, Uncle Bruce unleashed a memorable demonstration of his capacity for letting people know what he thought of them. After we had arrived at the place, a couple perhaps in their late twenties pulled up in a red Volkswagen Beetle. I don’t remember much about them, except that they said hi and we returned the greeting. They removed a picnic basket from their car and laid out a lunch for themselves on a solitary picnic table that stood in the shade of a willow tree. While they lunched, Grandpa led us on a walk down the shore, out of sight of the beach. We were gone quite awhile, and by the time of our return, the picnickers had disappeared, although their car was still parked by Grandpa’s Cadillac, like an eager puppy next to its staid parent. The puppy’s windows were open, giving it a friendly, accessible appearance.
To his extreme consternation, Uncle Bruce espied some trash on the beach—trash that had either eluded our notice before or that had been deposited there during our hike. In what I thought at the time was a rush to judgment, he shouted invectives at the couple who had come in the Volkswagen Beetle. “Slobs!” he cried out, as he scooped up wrappers and pop bottles and stuffed them into a paper bag, which was itself among the litter. “We’ll fix them. They can have their own trash back!” With that he emptied his collection of garbage onto the driver’s seat of the little car with the friendly, accessible appearance. None of us said a word, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether justice or injustice had been served. The question would return to me years later when I had to confront the unspeakable quantities of garbage that filled Uncle Bruce’s own quarters.
* * *
The highlight of our stay in Rutherford that summer was the day on which Uncle Bruce took Mother, Jenny and me to the New York World’s Fair over in Brooklyn. It was a full day, but none of us tired of the displays and exhibitions, the Mayan pole dancers at the Mexican pavilion, the TV phones at IBM, the “view of the future” at the GM exhibit, and the many other interesting things we saw. One of my most vivid memories was of Michelangelo’s Pieta, which had been transported from St. Peter’s and about which Mother and Dad had made much noise long before our trip to New Jersey[10]. As time wore on, I realized what a classic outing that day had been for Mother and Uncle Bruce. Well into advanced age, they loved going to such smorgasboards for the curious.
* * *
That summer of ’64 we shared 42 Lincoln with another houseguest: Gaga’s niece Lois, the daughter of Gaga’s sister. The sister and Lois had suffered mightily as the result of the husband-father’s alcoholism, and without any hesitation, Mother said, Grandpa had given them much support, just as he had supported other relatives. Lois had been so down on her luck, apparently, that she had moved north from Florida, and picked up residence on the third floor of our grandparents’ house. She worked somewhere during the day, and came home about 5:00, the time that Superman came on television. Lois smoked Winstons and had a southern accent, painted fingernails and extremely red lipstick. Sometimes she’d sit with us on the couch in the billiard room, while we all watched TV, and during the commercials, she would banter with us. Then she’d disappear to her quarters for the rest of the evening. She also disappeared for the weekends. She died in back in Florida in her late 70s, pretty much friendless and penniless.
* * *
In mid-August, we said good-bye to everything that had filled our days “out East” and boarded the train for the return to Minnesota. It had been a grandly memorable visit, and sealed the impression that “New Jersey” was a far more dynamic world than the quiet, studious, contemplative world of the “Nilsson side” of our family.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Before I was of school age, we had a small television housed in a wooden cabinet. I remember watching Howdy Doody but not much else. Then one day, it came to pass that the television was put away on a shelf in a small storage room, which, because it lacked insulation, was rather cold during the winter, so we called it the “cold room.” Perhaps the TV had broken down and our parents never got around to having it repaired or replaced or maybe (as the legend developed within the family) it was a conscious decision on their part to rid the household of television so that our imaginations would find greater encouragement. In the event, I think our imaginations were strengthened. For example, I have a distinct memory of one lazy, rainy, summer afternoon, when Nina, Elsa, and I (Jenny was an infant) entertained ourselves by sitting on little chairs in the “cold room” and peering up at the dark screen of the TV parked next to some cartons stored on the shelf. My sisters pretended to be watching Howdy Doody. I protested, insistent that we watch something with more action, like cowboys and Indians. An argument broke out as to what we should be watching. Demonstrating a mature sense of compromise, my sisters suggested that if I would be willing to watch their program for awhile, they would allow me to switch the imaginary channel to the “cowboys and Indians” channel. Over the years, Mother and Dad would sometimes rent a television. The occasions were the Olympics, the Presidential nominating conventions, the first moon landing, and whenever Gaga came to visit.
[2] Gaga once acknowledged that Grandpa was “a very smart and accomplished man,” but her praise was in the context of belittling his domestic skills. “I don’t think he could boil a cup of water,” she said, “but I taught him how to fill a bowl with puffed rice and then pour milk on it so that he could get his own breakfast.”
[3] This crazy horn, loud and scary enough to keep a marauding band of Mongols at bay, also served to alert volunteer firemen of an emergency, this being long before the day of pagers and cell phones. There was a code for each part of town—two blasts followed by four, repeated twice, for example, or some other combination. Grandpa always carried in his shirt pocket a list of the codes and would pull out the list whenever the alarm system went off, find the right combination and mumble the location. Over the years that I visited Rutherford while the horn blast system was in place, Grandpa would slip out and drive away soon after the alarm had gone off. His destination, I’m sure, was always the scene of the emergency.
[4] I don’t know just when they stopped discarding newspapers, but it must have been sometime later, because the house was still neat and orderly during that summer of ’64.
[6] A moment of momentary (and illusory) pride when candidate Richard Nixon came calling and shook a few hands—including Grandpa’s.
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[8] Here’s a picture of George at Henry’s house the Cove, celebrating what must have been his 70th birthday anniversary, given the seven candles atop the cake. The photo was taken on the cove-facing verandah of Henry’s house next door to The Escape Hatch—given the cedar log cross-bracing below the railing, which was a feature of Henry’s more rustic abode.
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[10] On the eve of our departure for New Jersey, I had asked Dad what souvenir he wanted me to bring back from the New York World’s Fair. “A model of the Pieta,” he answered without hesitation. I imagined that that would be hard to come by. Thus, I was amazed when Mother and Uncle Bruce took Jenny and me into a little souvenir shop at the fairgrounds, whereupon, the first thing I saw were about five shelves of Pieta models of all sizes and qualities. I bought one of the smaller versions, which sat on a little wooden, half-round platform with a dark blue mirror mounted on the back. It would become a permanent piece of chintz in our parents’ house, and one that I would come to see more specifically as a piece of “New Jersey Italian Catholic” chintz.
