Scenes from My Backyard, Part Two: Young Blood and Old Farmers

I could swear I just heard that same snap, crackle and pop noise that I heard in the sports doctor's office I'd visited years back, armed with an MRI showing a small tear in my ACL. As the doctor gazed at the previous report, he asked: "Do you ever experience pain in your joints?" "No." "How about stiffness in your joints?" "Sometimes in the morning but it goes away quickly upon stretching." "Any clicking or other sounds when you move?" "Nope." He points to a 3-step block on the floor, "Would you step up on this, please?"

In the quiet of his office the crackling and popping of my ankles and knees seemed to resound. I chuckled, "Well, I guess my joints do make some noise." The doctor shook his head in amusement, "You're like an old farmer who's riddled with arthritis, but has a high pain threshold, so when you ask him about pain or discomfort he says, 'No, Doc, no pain at all!' "

***

He arrived bundled for warmth one spring morning. I'd never seen him before, but his red-checked hat reminded me of my grandfather.

I'm familiar with the regular crew. Although they are all cross-trained for each task, they each have their own regular specialty. For instance there is my nemesis, the tee-box mower. He has it in for me, I could swear. When I golf in the early morning, I'll frequently happen upon him as he is in the midst of his work. He will politely move his mower to the side and idle the motor in neutral, so that it is quiet as I tee-up, address and swing, but the very instant, and I mean the very nanosecond my club makes contact with the ball, he engages the gears and revs up the engine. It's the knowledge that he will consistently do this that tenses me up. It takes every bit of my meditation and relaxation powers to focus on the drive alone and obliterate any thought of him. But Nemesis is an exception, as the rest of our grounds crew are unfailingly considerate and well-mannered.

Greens are, weather-dependant, mowed every day. Since the green is right outside my back door, I've observed many a green mowing over the past couple of years. So, with curiosity I watched this new guy pull up on the mower.

Like I said he is wearing a woolen red plaid hunting hat, plus earmuffs, a Carhartt jacket and good work gloves as he drives the mower to a spot beside the green itself, just past the the  collar. Here he stops the mower and begins to disembark. I notice that he is a slight man, about 5' 7'' or so and probably not weighing more that 145 pounds, soaking wet. He's quite a bit older than the regular greens mower, I'm guessing he's a few years closer to 70 than I am. I immediately wonder how they found this guy. He's probably retired, looking for a little extra income, maybe even a retired farmer. Farmers usually have extensive mowing experience.

I know well the stiffness of arthritis and it's clear this guy has it. It is slowly and with painstaking effort that he lifts that first leg off of the mower. In fact he uses both hands to lift his thigh up and give his leg a boost to get it going in the right direction, and that's when I could swear I heard the snap-popping of his joints from the comfort of my kitchen chair, as I sipped my coffee and watched.  Finally with both feet on the ground he stretches and arches his back, then walks over, retrieves the flag and brings it back to the mower, where he starts up the engine and begins to mow.

Now right off the bat, this is different from the young fellow who usually mows the green. Young Blood hits the ground running, so to speak, by never stopping the mower, and grabbing the flag on the fly during one of his mowing passes. He then drops the pin back into the cup the same way, on the fly, two passes later, quick and efficient. The contrast in speed and time spent makes me worry for the viability of the old ex-farmer's job.

But, there is another component to greens keeping, more important than the quickness with which the task is completed… it is the eventual way your ball will play on the green, the speed with which your ball will travel, the uniformity, the holding ability, why the very integrity of the finely mown grass are all critical to the person putting. While the science of greens maintenance is crucial, such as how often to water, type of grass, aeration, fertilization, etc., the refined and precise art to properly mowing a green is at least equal in importance. And it's here, where Old Farmer beats out Young Blood every time.

The finest, skilled greenskeepers originally came from Scotland. Is it a coincidence that this golf course shares a zip code with Lanark, the ancient city of Scotland? Perhaps this Old Farmer has some Scottish genes?

His zen-like movements are like watching meditation in motion, like his raising and lowering of the mower blades when he exits or enters the green. His turns are always completely off the collar and apron. His cuts are straight as an arrow. I especially enjoy watching how he leans the top half of his body off of the mower with his eyes glued to the sight of the edge of the mower blade. And he never skips the final step, the cleanup pass (as Young Blood others are known to do).

The cleanup pass is where it's easy to make a mistake. But if you don't do it, over time you can actually shrink a green, or make a collar larger, depending on how you look at it. And many's the time I'll spot a shaggy green edge in the morning when Old Farmer is not on the job. The morning dew is a dead giveaway for a skipped cleanup pass.

Also, Old Farmer is the only greens mower here that I've ever seen make a visual inspection of his results. It's here, as he slowly walks over to replace the flag, that he'll fix anything that is not up to his standards, like the hand picking up of any bits of grass that clump with the dew and fail to make it to the catch bin. I've come to appreciate him as the quintessential greens mower. It's as if he's the greens tender for the Master's at Augusta, or something. Yup, a greens mower must love the finished product. And when Old Farmer is on the job our greens receive a "spot on" coddling.

But, to me the best thing is the difference, after two years on the job, in Old Farmer's movements. He now hops easily on and off the mower, his movements are quicker and have a more youthful ease. Coming out of retirement was probably the best thing for Old Farmer. I know he's the best thing for our greens.

a final pass

a walking inspection

Scenes from My Backyard

With his bright vermillion hair, all slicked-back, it looks like he’s wearing an iridescent red cap. His quick and erratic, albeit graceful moves are almost artful and definitely meant for evasion, I'm thinking. Finally finding a suitable spot he stops, but his head turns quickly side to side, like a dope dealer checking for the narcs. Unsatisfied that the area is safe at the moment, he darts away, only to appear again just moments later.

***

They are the oddest family and new to the neighborhood this year. They remind me of a cartoon show and comic book I viewed back in the late 1950s. As a child I enjoyed seeing Baby Huey's comparatively petite parents struggle with their sumo wrestler-sized offspring, whose strength and bearing would eventually wind up damaging some piece of furniture or belonging in the process. Oh, the blind love of parents… I can't help myself and pick up the binoculars to get a better look at these new guys in the area. I just find it fascinating that they don't seem to notice that their baby is a bit, hmmm, well "different," I guess is how I'd put it.

***

***

They call it "brood parasitism" when the cowbird deposits her eggs in another's nest.

This warbler will feed and raise the larger fledgling cowbird as if it were her own.

Things That Make You Go...

Practically anyone I care to hear from is programmed into my cell phone, which just rang. I look to see who's calling and see an "815" prefix. This means it's local, someone from our new-home area. I recall that just a couple of days ago Barb had me write down my contact information. She has an "815" prefix. I like Barb, she's one of the first people I met when we bought our house out here. But, I could swear I programmed her info...

"Hello."

"Hi, Rae, it's Barb."

From the voice I know that it's a different Barb than I'd thought. This Barb is the head of the women's golf league, which held a sign-up event just the night before.

"Rae, we didn't see you at the sign-up for ladies' golf. Were you planning to join us this year?"

"No, Barb. I'm skipping league this year. I'll golf this year, but just for fun with friends and family."

Her voice changes to a subdued tone, "Now I understand you had a bad experience last year, and I'm sorry for that."

This last comment of hers sends me into a fit of laughter that I manage to stifle to a snicker as I gasp out, "I did?!" All the while I’m wishing someone had shared with me the details of this bad experience of mine. I can only imagine that it's a juicy tidbit.

A couple of people had asked me why I quit the women's golf league last year. My response was always that I found that "league" play took the fun out of the game for me, to say nothing of elongating the time of a sport that already takes a long time.

***

If you don't like to be talked about, do not move to a small town-like community. But, I really don't mind, I guess.

And I get that whole "Harper Valley PTA" thing. I kind of do the same thing myself. You know, conjure up suppositions. The only difference being, I guess, is that I don't share these hypotheses of mine with anyone. Well except for, occasionally, my trusted husband. But, he's used to me and my conjectures.

Like for example, this couple, I have in mind. A couple I consider to be an odd match. They say "there's a lid for every pot", but… Anyway this couple lives out here. For purposes of anonymity, I'll call them Sam and Syd, with Sam being the husband and Syd the wife.

For almost two solid years I can't recall ever seeing them together. Most often, I see Sam. He   shows up at different events and he always has some excuse for Syd being off doing something else.

On the other hand, if I attend a women-only event, there is Syd, sans Sam, of course.

I noticed both of their names together on a sign-up sheet, for our annual "Lake Clean Up." But, come the actual event only Syd showed up, with Sam being "sick."

My husband and I were golfing with Sam one day. I can’t remember how we got on the subject of sleeping, but Sam mentioned something about sleeping alone. When I asked "What about Syd?" he quickly explained that he and Syd had separate sleeping quarters, due to Sam's excessive snoring.

But, the event that set my crazy mind to wondering was the day when I was shopping, in a town some 50+ miles away, and there was Sam in the women's department of an apparel store. I did a double-take as I saw him pulling some yoga pants, with a hot-pink neon trim, taut against his waistline. With the pants draped down, he lifted one leg and turned his ankle, to get a look at an angle of where the hem fell. Just like a woman might check for fit and length. He looked up and spotted me. He smiled sheepishly and said, "Syd's just a bit smaller than me and I wanted to see if these would fit her." I didn't respond verbally. I couldn’t. My head was swirling as it all came together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I stood there, nodding I'm sure with my mouth agape. With a wink, Sam said, "It's a surprise gift. So, don’t you tell her."

When I got home I asked my husband, "Have you ever seen Sam and Syd together?" My trusted husband was reading at the time. He put his book down, lowered his reading glasses, looked at me and said, "I'm sorry. What?"

"You know, Sam and Syd. Have you ever seen both of them at the same time and in the same place? Think hard, now. And I'm talking Clark Kent and Superman, here. Have you ever seen them together at one time and in the same place?"

He looked off for a moment, then turned back to me and said, "Sure. Weren't they both at the "Winter Festival?"

"No. Remember, Sam told us Syd was out-of-town for that conference, or something."

"How about "Snow Golf? I remember having a lengthy conversation with Syd."

"Yes! But, do you recall that Sam was not there?!"

"Oh, that's right."

My trusted husband paused for a moment more and said, "No, I guess now that you mention it, I never have seen them together." He readjusted his glasses, picked up his book to resume reading, them abruptly put it down again. He looked at me with incredulity, "Surely, you're not suggesting..."

Oh, but aren't I?

Springing Up All Over

This year Old Man Winter was rough on us, in the rural upper-northwest corner of Illinois, so any signs of spring are welcome. Well, maybe not so much the smell from the hog farm just a couple of miles away (as the crow flies and the wind blows.)

When we lived in the city a sign of spring might be: the return of the cart food vendors and street musicians, the ice cream store reopening, the last of the tiny melting mounds of soot-blackened snow, or the runners along the lake front donning shorts once again.

The cooler temperatures still linger here but, I'm heartened by signs that warmer weather is soon to arrive in our corner of the world, like another nearby farm that sheared their ewes in preparation for lambing (shearing makes it easier for the babies to find the udder, I'm told), or the return of the bluebirds and red-wing blackbirds. My husband is relieved that the mailbox is no longer in jeopardy of being knocked over by the snow plow.

This week I noticed the hyacinths and other early perennials poking through the ground...

Speaking of rising up from the ground, spring always reminds me of a story John once told me. John was the "jack-of-all-trades" that the Sisters of Charity employed at their suburban Chicago "Mallinckrodt" motherhouse, named for their German foundress. The nuns were downsizing to just one or two small buildings and a small plot of land, having sold most of their acreage and their huge school/dormitory to the university, where I was employed. The university would use the space to open a satellite campus.  Part of the contract stipulated that the university must hire John, with full university benefits. John's work had been essential to the sisters over many years. He knew the grounds and buildings like the back of his hand, so it was almost a win-win situation they claimed. The nuns would have no worries that their loyal assistant would be unemployed and the university would have the benefit of an honest, dependable and capable man who already knew the nuts and bolts of the operation (and I'm pretty sure the cunning sisters had reckoned that this type of situation would assure keeping John nearby for when they needed his help.)

The nuns were correct about one thing, John seemed able to fix anything. He was an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, a machine mechanic, and I think he even worked on the nuns cars. He had a roomy, well-equipped and orderly workshop in the basement of the school building.

If I needed to place a work order or arrange a catered event with the staff chef, there were university protocols in place, such as voice mail or online requests. But I always liked, if time permitted, to make my request in person. It never hurts to schmooze, I always say.

On one of those days of kibitzing, John told me the story of the burial casket. It seems one of the nuns had died in the winter and the ground was semi-frozen. Did I mention that John also was a grave digger for the nuns' on-property cemetery? Anyway, John told the nuns that he would place the deceased sister's casket in a holding vault, to be buried when the ground was properly thawed in May. The sisters, believing John to be capable of miracles, insisted he could think of some way to get the nun immediately buried. So, John, using a portable heater and tenting to warm the ground, did the best he could. When the spring thaw came, it was accompanied by unusually heavy rains. "It was Easter Sunday," John said, shaking his head, "when the dear departed sister's coffin popped up right through the soil."

And do you know that golf balls also pop up in the spring? During the golf season a ball might become, figuratively, not literally, buried in the rough. These golf balls are sometimes then run over by a golfer driving a cart willy-nilly, as he frantically searches for his ball in the area he last saw it. The weight of the cart, two golfers and two sets of clubs, further buries the ball, this time literally. The ground freezes and contracts in the winter, sucking the ball in even more. But come spring, come the melting of snow, the thawing of soil and the heavy rains, up pops the ball. Why it's almost miraculous!

For my husband and I, spring is one of our two annual ball hawking ventures. We live on a golf course that is closed from December 1, until April 1, weather dependent. When  closed, we walk the course twice a year to look for lost and unclaimed balls. We usually go in early December and then again just before the course opens in April. The spring season is when I spy my favorite finds, the balls just peeking up from the ground, right between the first and second cut of rough, just off the fairway.

We clean the balls and reuse them. We have a friend who visits, who can easily go through a couple of dozen balls in 18 holes of golf and it helps to have a bunch on hand for him. The grandkids have fun playing with a large assortment of balls, and because they’re young they still enjoy washing the golfballs for us. On occasion I have found my own ball, which I'd lost the summer before.

A gift from a loved one, special ball-finding glasses

And sometimes when you're looking for golfballs, you find other signs of spring like an antler shed.

***

bend, tee up my ball

breathe, swing, making good contact

smile, watching it soar

Ev'ry ball starts as

a shot delivered hope-filled

but some hook or slice

lost ball, where’d it go?

mourned, then found again, revived

reused, then re-lost

first sign of spring here,

confession from a ball hawk,

thaw heaves up golf balls

of the ancient mariner

Well you only need the light when it's burning low

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow

Only know you love her when you let her go…

    

                         And you let her go.

***

1) remove any strainer/aerator attachment from faucet

2) sterilize the inside of spigot with a flame, rubbing alcohol or bleach

3) run the cold water full force for five minutes

4) put water sample into bottle without contaminating water or bottle by touching 

5) note date and time of water collection

6) take to or overnight express to water testing site within 24 hours

7) wait for results

***

I grew up within walking distance of Lake Michigan. I'd seen her many faces: ultramarine blue with pearly whitecaps, ice-jammed and snow covered, mirror-flat azure, gray and dark with ten foot crashing waves... As a child standing upon "the rocks" on Chicago's lakefront the water was so lucent the ripples of sand ten feet below the water were clearly visible. 

***

“Hey, did you hear that James has kidney cancer? He’s the tenth man from that same area to get kidney cancer. I’m thinking of getting water delivered from Culligan. I don’t know how much it costs, but I don’t think our water’s safe to drink.”

***

My husband pumps ethanol-laced gasoline into our car one frigid morning. I step inside  to purchase a pack of gum. Accepting change from the cashier a man turns to me and asks. "Did you come from the South?" It takes me a moment to figure out that he means the direction from which I've driven. He isn't asking me if I was born south of the Mason-Dixon line.

"No, but that's the direction we're headed. We're going to Clinton," I offer.

"So am I. There was a bad accident on the Argo Fay bridge this morning and the road is closed. You might want to take a different route. You can follow me. I'll get updates on the way."

We follow his corn-filled farming grain truck into Clinton, Iowa where he turns onto the road to ADM.  We head west.

***

A visiting student from Germany and I are chatting in my office which overlooks Lake Michigan. "Ranell," he laughs, "that is not a lake. If, on the clearest day, you cannot see what's on the other side, it is not a lake. That," he points at the water, "is an inland freshwater sea." And he's right, as that is how the Great Lake system is labeled on the U.S. EPA website.

***

ADM is Archer Daniels Midland and they have this bizarre-looking plant located on the Mississippi River. It's distinctive on a couple of counts. You cannot miss the scent and sight of it. Like the odor of a skunk, the smell that emanates from ADM is strong, offensive and distinctive. It smells, to me, like rancid meat might smell if you went ahead and seasoned it and cooked it. Once we were driving through another state, when I noticed that identical smell. I looked off over a cornfield to see an ADM plant.

ADM plants boast massive domes with huge pipes coming out and forming an x pattern. From there are seemingly endless lines of piping that curve, jut and join to any number of buildings and towers, many belching out smoke. The Clinton plant is about two miles in length.

My grandson and I used to build these elaborate "intergalactic manufacturing plants" in his basement. We'd utilize every toy he owned, including a pop-up tent. We'd employ every empty cardboard box, every leftover scrap of plastic or wood, the attachments to the family's vacuum cleaner, pots/pans and lids, you name it. We'd manufacture any manner of items, i.e., various plastic colored balls, which were figuratively "energy orbs" of different color-coordinated powers. Our plants were unusual looking conglomerates of anything and everything. I think of them whenever I pass ADM Clinton. Yup, that's what an ADM plant looks like, an imaginative 4-year-old's behemoth, smoke-spewing playground.

***

The EPA site states that the Great Lakes comprise about 84% of North America's surface fresh water and 21% of the world's supply of surface fresh water. Only the polar ice caps contain more fresh water.

***

One day we stop in Clinton for lunch. Adjacent to our booth is a large round table that seats 10. It's taken by a group of well-dressed employees sporting i.d. tags from ADM. They don't pay much attention to the white-haired senior couple sitting nearby.

Here are some of the snippets of their urgent conversation  "Iowa's cracking down" "allowable waste dumping"  "waterways" "discharge" "contaminated storm water" "nitrates"

***

I’m gonna soak up the sun

While it’s still free

I’m gonna soak up the sun
Before it goes out on me

                                                                      -Sheryl Crow and Jeff Trott

Known for his ineloquent flubs, the elder of the Chicago Daley-family mayors, Richard J. Daley, once delivered this heartfelt pitch:

     "…you see the sun coming up and you're fishing and then you look to the west and see the beautiful skyline of Chicago; you can't help but get a feeling that we live in a beautiful city. There's so much in life for free if only we appreciate it. And there's nuttin' as wholesome as a fish."

His message is similar to Sheryl Crow's message, look around you, it's yours for free, but appreciate it while you have it. The message is similar to communications from my native American ancestors, see it, use it, use all of it or leave it alone, appreciate it, respect it, when you utilize something- think of its  effect seven generations down, how it will impact your grandchildren's grandchildren...

***

Newsflash: More than a pound of highly toxic mercury was spilled at the Archer Daniels Midland plant in Clinton, Iowa, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Newsflash: "We apologize and will use all available resources to take care of the river," said Paul Newton, Duke Energy president -- North Carolina.

Newsflash: Severe Drought has U. S. West Fearing the Worst. “California’s current water situation is not sustainable. We don’t use water well, we don’t manage it well and demand exceeds supply."

Newflash: Don't Drink the Water: West Virginia After the Chemical Spill

Newsflash: EPA Connects "Fracking" to Water Contamination

***

Ethanol production began as something that seemed like a good, almost wholesome idea. But, it actually offers no environmental benefit and takes more energy to make than obtainable by burning it. UC Berkeley geo-engineering professor Tad Patzek says, "…these are effects that impact the drinking water all over the Corn Belt…"

***

My husband and I drive from a bucolic rural area in America's heartland to Chicago every couple of weeks, to see and cuddle our new infant grandson. We also take advantage of this time to fill several five gallon containers with good, old safe Lake Michigan drinking and cooking water.

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

Saving Time

I wanted to post this two days earlier but couldn't because my circadian clock is all messed up. Once I'm reminded that we are again switching our clocks, I start to fret about how the time change will affect me. No, not really. But, I just bet there are people who are sensitive enough for time changes to stress them out.

Time change doesn't affect me much anymore, as I'm retired now and my time is my own. I no longer punch a time clock. Actually, I never have literally punched a clock. But, even if you only figuratively "punch a time clock," when you are employed outside of your home, your work hours do not belong to you. Back then I tried to sell my time to the highest benevolent bidder. Once sold, my bidder could then bid me to do whatever I had contracted to do with my hours during that appointed time. My bidder could use my time to better the world. Or my bidder could just use my hours to fetch thorns for him and generally make his self-complicated life easier.

I once assisted a gifted, artistic, brilliant, and a tad bit eccentric priest at a Catholic university. One afternoon he rushed into my office, “Put your coat on, grab a scissors, oh, and maybe an envelope.” “What’s up?” I asked as he ushered me, hatless and gloveless to the elevator. “You’re going to pick some thorns. I saw some bushes with them on campus sometime back. Look over behind the Chapel.” It was windy, subzero and the Chapel overlooked a frozen Lake Michigan corner of the campus. “How many thorns do you need?” I asked over my shoulder as he directed me toward the brush. “About 200” he called out as he headed directly back to the warmth of his office to review his lecture notes.

***
The most common reason I've heard over the years as to why we utilize daylight saving time, and then don't utilize it again for months, is that it helps farmers. When we first relocated from the city to a rural farm area, I spoke to the farmer who, in his spare time, we employ to maintain/clean our furnace. When I asked him about "daylight savings time" he looked at me like I was an alien being from some distant galaxy. Then, he patiently explained that it made no difference to him, nor his cows, what hour the department of transportation attached to his day, he still had 19 hours of work to do in a 16-hour period. Period. The amount of daylight per 24 hours is not subject to human regulation. And thank goodness for that! Right? Can you imagine? Holy smokes!

The oversight of time zones was assigned to the Department of Transportation because time standards were first instituted by the railroad industry. Once I adapt to whichever time change we are in, I'm quite content. But still, my question to the DOT is: "Why the heck can't we just end the madness and pick one time and stick to it?"

"Because!" people tell me there are reasons. Like? Like, the university professor who said, "Do you want children waiting for the school bus in the dark!?" Or the earnest graduate student who urgently presses for the time change saving "tons of energy" by not having to use electricity and fossil fuels to light and heat our homes and offices during that precious hour.

The dog we are dog-sitting doesn't understand the change, so she'll be expecting dinner at her regular time. And she may, for a few days anyway, wake at her usual time. She won't get it, but she'll adjust. And discounting dogs and farm animals, what about people like the character Dustin Hoffman played in Rain Man? He'd be so distraught by a twice-per-year change in his routine, wouldn't he? Do we care? Well, I kind of care.

The human circadian clock is designed to gradually adjust over the course of a season, with sleep and wake times slowly changing in response to the varying intensity and length of sunlight. But that's not good enough for us. Twice per year we amp up or tone down the change to either lose or gain one hour of sleep – shifting our internal clocks much faster than nature intended.

I keep a radio-controlled "atomic" clock at my bedside.  My clock has a radio inside, which receives a signal that comes from Colorado, or somewhere, somewhere where an actual atomic clock is located. My clock, when the battery is fresh and working, always displays the correct time, down to the exact second. I never have to adjust it. When we transition from standard time to daylight saving time my clock "springs forward" one hour and when DST is finished it automatically "falls back" one hour. But humans and animals are not like my radio-controlled clock and we do not automatically change. Just ask any parent, who struggles to get their children to readjust their little internal human clocks. Might it be easier for schools to have seasonal winter and summer hours, like stores already utilize to accommodate holiday sales, then for everyone to change their clocks?

I'm not certain how much energy we save by employing a time-change. I think I read somewhere that it is negligible. Besides, there is already about an hour difference in sunrise on opposite ends of the time zone spectrums. So, for such areas, like the one near our former Chicago home, the state border, in this case Illinois/Indiana, is the cut-off. Many people who live near the state line commute between states in two different time zones. How are they saving energy?

We've dammed and rerouted rivers, we've man-made lakes, we level hills and bore through mountains. You can see how we might think we can control the flow of time. I love the quote, supposedly attributed to a native american, probably one of my wise ancestors, that goes something like this, "Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and thus have a longer blanket."

And the Oscar Goes to...

“Mom, can I go to the movies with my friends today?”

“Yes, if you take Ranell with you.”

My mother was a practical woman, and so it was as simple as that. It wasn’t necessary for her to ask my sister pertinent questions such as, “Which friends?” or “What movie?” She trusted that if I went along, there would be no shenanigans and, courtesy of me, Mom would get a fairly accurate accounting of the event and participants.

With only the slightest hesitation, my sister replied, “Sure, Mom. I’ll take her with me.”

It was the summer of 1962. I was ten years old, my sister was thirteen. In the neighborhood near the Catholic grammar school we attended was a small, balcony-less, movie theater, named for the street on which it was located. The Bryn Mawr had seating for just over 750 people. Nearer to our home was the magnificent Uptown Theater, which boasted 4,381 seats, a huge lobby featuring a pond stocked with giant goldfish and a ceiling that soared 140 feet high. Back then the Uptown ran “first-run,” double-feature films, while the Bryn Mawr featured single, second-run movies. The Uptown charged 50 cents and the Bryn Mawr only 25 cents, so for the bargain price of one dollar, my mother could rid herself of the two of us for the afternoon as 50 cents would buy each of us admission to the cinema, a 15 cent box of too-salty popcorn and and a ten cent waxed paper cup of soda pop with which to wash it down. 

It was a sunny day as my sister and I headed up Broadway on a one-mile walk that would take us from the worn and faded former grandeur of the Uptown neighborhood to the less grand, but newer, cleaner and safer neighborhood of Edgewater. As we neared Balmoral Avenue the instructions were laid out for me: “When I meet my girlfriends, you are on your own. You are to sit by yourself on the opposite side of the theater and not within five rows of my friends and me. I will meet you in front of Stoyas Pharmacy fifteen minutes after the show.”

I found a seat inside the dark, uncrowded theater. I sat on the right side, as you faced the screen, in row two or three. Just before I nestled down in my chair, I peeked around to see my sister and two other, soon to be high school freshmen, girls giggling together on the left side, about five rows back.

The theater darkened even more. I was reaching down for some popcorn, when I heard that whistle, that three-toned whistle that I remember to this day. It was a short tone, followed by a sustained tone, followed by another short tone. It was a call of some sort. It repeated twice more. The screen was still black. It got my attention and for the next 153 minutes I didn’t give a hoot that I’d a sister who’d just abandoned me in a movie theater.

***

Until that day I never cared for musicals. They were something my mother liked, not me. I found it absurdly unrealistic that people in a film would burst forth in song and dance. But, this was different. I found myself willingly suspending my disbelief and embracing the fantasy. Perhaps it was the realism of the theme.

After the attention-garnering whistle, there appears on the screen an abstract scribbling of sorts. It has a yellow background with a series of various small vertical black markings. The black abstract remains unchanged, but the background color gradually changes to orange. All the while, this hauntingly cool jazzy instrumental medley of music plays alongside. The background color goes from orange to red, to blood-red, to purple, to blue, to red again, to green, to orange, to green, to blue; and all the while the compilation of songs play, in tandem to the color sequences. These are songs I’ll, later in life, come to love. I hear bits of the tunes I'll soon know as “Tonight,” “Maria,” and some of faster paced Latino music. This prologue, I later discover, lasts 4.49 minutes, and even though the screen showed only subtle changes, I was rapt.

The music softens and the background returns to blue, the title of the movie slowly rises on the screen and the abstract lines evolve to become a city skyline.

The music softens and gives way to the sound of rhythmic snapping fingers. A directly  overhead aerial view of towering urban buildings come into focus. The drifting overhead shot changes, from views of harbors, roadways, and tall buildings. There are background city sounds. When the shot comes to the Empire State Building even I, as a 10-year-old, can recognize this landmark.

The shots zeroes in a bit and I see neighborhoods, some with stately homes, one with a beautiful domed building, then parking lots filled with automobiles. The camera focus is closer still as I  see an overhead shot of a divided playground area, with one area showing young men playing handball. Then the shot is closer still as you see a group of tough-looking young men idling, their backs up against the chain link fence of the very playground we’d seen overhead. The group, snapping their fingers in unison, looks out on the playground, as an errant handball bounces their way. A guy in the back, near the fence, grabs the ball on it’s bounce. A young man their age cautiously walks toward them, as if afraid to extend his hand to request the return of his ball. They stare the lad down before the group leader gestures to the tough guy to relinquish the ball. The young man takes the ball and quickly runs away.

The gang resumes snapping in unison and, with a sideway nod of his head, the leader beckons the group to follow him. They continue snapping fingers as they stride across the playground. A 7 or 8 year old girl sits in the center of their path, busily scrawling on her elaborate blacktop chalk drawing. The group walks around the perimeter of the girl’s art, respecting her space. She is clearly not an enemy.

The toughs walk directly toward some male kids playing basketball. In a midair pass, the toughs intercept the ball and spend a quick few seconds of shooting around. It’s apparent that, like the handball youth, these kids are in fear of the gang, and they do not protest. The gang returns the basketball, snickering in their domination and they continue out onto the street. Here they dance freely as it becomes apparent from the reactions of passersby that the gang owns the street.

At least until they run into a young, tough Puerto Rican man...

Whoa. I was captivated. This wasn’t my mother’s Meet Me in St. Louis musical...

I’m pretty sure I shed a tear at some point in this movie that was nominated for 11 Oscars, 10 of which it won, including Best Picture. And the epilogue was as cool as the prologue. It listed the credits as if they were graffiti written on the very walls, fences, doorways and signs, I'd just seen in the movie. The filmmakers thought of everything that could captivate and win over a 10-year-old kid, who'd previously eschewed musicals.

***

I met my sister as scheduled at Stoyas. We walked home in near silence, as I was deep in thought about the film. I’d already figured out that it was actually the retelling of Romeo and Juliet that Sr. Michaela had told us about. Finally, my sister broke the ice, “How’d you like the movie? It was good don’t you think?”

“Yes.” I smiled, looking her directly in the eye. “I liked it a lot.”

“You’re not going to tell Mom, are you?” she gulped with trepidation.

I was impervious. I’d sat through an adult movie in a theater all by myself. She couldn’t manipulate me anymore. I looked up at her again and smiled, “Of course not. After all, Sis, ‘womb to tomb,’ ‘birth to earth.’ ”

“Oh, Jeez! I’m in trouble,” she sighs.