Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Keller's Hill

The house was the oldest in the neighborhood. It would seem that the front faced our house since it was directly across the street. That was not the case even though everyone viewed it that way. The front was actually on the other side facing the neighbor’s backyard. The house was older than any of the roads and in time a few pieces of the property were sold off to others thus making the actual back of the house the new front. It was not the house, as grand as it was, that interested the children in the neighborhood; it was the long, sloping hill directly below the home that caught our attention. Where my house faced, the property was dotted with many trees, including a massive, ancient weeping cherry, and directly beside the house was another massive azalea that almost kissed the roof of the looming three-story dwelling. Directly behind the azalea was what we knew as “Keller’s Hill”.

George and Ann Keller and their two children owned the home and the large lot on which it sat. By the time I arrived, the two children, a boy and a girl, were older than most of the kids who flocked there each and every snowstorm to enjoy the marvelous ride that the hill offered. The older of the Keller children, a boy, had graduated college with an engineering degree and moved southward and the girl was in college, soon to land a job in the mayor’s office. By the time I arrived on the scene, neither was around during the day, even in the snowy wonderland of their property. The neighborhood kids were there, in droves, each and every time it snowed.

The owners did not mind the flux of sledders using their hill for sport; it was a simpler time when people allowed children to cut across their property or to use their hill for sledding and were comfortable knowing that the parents would not sue them should a mishap occur nor hold them responsible. In those days, the parents took responsibility for their own children.

There are many stories that emanated from Keller’s Hill, almost as many as there were kids using it. Several, though, have remained in my memory for all these years, resonating with whelps of laughter, whelps of pain, and whelps from a simpler time when “going out to play” was the mantra of the times. My most vivid memory of Keller’s Hill was on a glorious January day when the snows had recently fallen in such a manner that sledding was imperative. The snow was just right for a slick, quick, exhilarating ride. The sun shone brightly and the hill was dotted with no less than twenty kids, all with their own Fearless Flyer sleds, none named Rosebud, but that feeling was certainly in the crisp air.

We took turns careening down the hill; then the laborious task of walking back up, looking forward to the next ride. We were careful of each other, guiding our sleds to avoid collisions with others, even at times rolling off to avoid an accident. It was Louie’s turn and he, a typical adolescent boy, decided to take the ride bravely backwards. He mounted his sled with his back to the front, much like the mansion behind him, and faced the rest of us standing on the dock awaiting a clear path to our next trip. He kicked off and, as each of us had experienced on the slick hill, accelerated to an almost blinding pitch. He waved, happily, as he sped down the slope, and standing in the bright afternoon sun, we watched. It soon became evident that a disaster was about to occur. The trees dotted the upper area of the house, but there was one on the slope, one which all kids knew to avoid and thus would steer their vehicle away. Louie did not see the tree coming, he only saw the children with gloved hands frantically waving. His look of glee told us that he could not hear our screams of “stop” and “watch out”; he was only thinking of the thrill and speed that he could feel as he glided down, towards certain pain, if not more dire consequences. The crack came instantaneously with his howl of excruciating agony as he collided with the tree. We ran to him, he seemed lifeless, still yet somehow his cries emanated from his surely broken body.

As unlucky as it would seem, Louie had luck with him that day. As he cried out, a compassionate stranger was driving towards the train station on his way to work. He heard the cry as well as the agonized pleas of the rest of us and stopped and ran towards the site of the crash. He knew what to do; I seem to remember that he said he was a doctor as he instructed the boys to remove the gliders from the bottom of a large sled, and told the girls to not move the frightened boy. He quickly reviewed the damage and gently moved Louie on to the makeshift litter, with the help of the bigger lads, and carefully took him to his car, while instructing Louie’s brothers to notify his mother that he was hospital-bound. Louie recovered but he was not in school for quite some time. Keller’s Hill was still a fun place to gather on a snowy day, however, none of us ever ventured to take the slope without face forward.

On another occasion, my brother’s friend, George, a tall lanky young man decided to take me for a ride. At that time I believed that riding with a larger person would give the sled a decidedly quicker pace. I also thought that it would afford me a chance to take the entire hill without bailing before the end point of a small, cold spring that separated the hill from the road. I was mistaken on each point. As I happily hopped on in front of George he told me that we would have a terrific ride. I agreed. I was wrong. I believed that with George’s long legs at the helm that we could swerve and turn in such a manner that I could never dream. I was wrong. As the sled took off from the dock, we did move quickly, watching the returning children go by as swiftly as if in a speedboat. By the time that George mentioned that he had no idea of how to guide the sled, I wished that I was in a boat. He also asked me if I knew how to stop. No, I had no idea, I had always bailed out, but with this giant of a boy, there was no bailing. We came to a screeching halt as we careened into the cold, sloppy, wet creek. With clothes dripping wet, and hands turning to ice, we started the arduous walk up the hill. It was fun, even though our landing was a disaster. I headed towards my warm house with George close behind. We laughed all the way into the living room where we were questioned and both offered dry clothes. I never got on a sled with George again, in fact, I never even ventured into a car with him, thinking that perhaps he still hadn’t learned how to steer or stop.

There was still another occasion that stands brightly in my mind, chasing the shadows of childhood into adulthood. It was New Year’s Eve and our family invited some of the neighbors into our home to welcome the coming year. The young people consisting of Linda Keller and my brother, who were both of an age to cheer the New Year as an adult, my sister and myself decided to attack Keller’s Hill in the still hours just after Baby New Year was born. My silver, round sled was to be the chariot of the night as we headed across the street to the revered hill. Linda was bright and savvy, she had no intention to sled down the darkened slope, but she could entice my “idiot” brother to tackle it. As we toasted the night she challenged him to take the hill on my shiny, metallic, fast, unsteerable, sled, standing up. This was a feat that couldn’t be done in the bright of the afternoon, stone-cold sober by the flying Wallendas. Of course my brother was game. He stood and took off, he fell, and Linda baited him again. The scene repeated numerous times. Linda howled with laughter, the intrepid rider betted again and again that it could be done. He hadn’t even noticed that the girls never put a toe on the sled; we just watched and learned that men could be easily baited into foolish endeavors simply by telling them that it can’t be done.

As the years passed, new children came to the hill in the daytime, and the older ones took to it at night. I had one last ride as I entered adulthood and then it was quiet. Eventually, the Kellers moved away, George passed away, no longer tending to his beloved property, Ann moved closer to her daughter until she too eventually joined her husband. The hill did not remain; the lots were sold off to newcomers and one neighborhood “kid”. The old cherry tree was taken as was the giant azalea. The home still remains with new people, just as kind as the old, but a pool now graces the area between the lots at the true front of the house. The spring at the end of the hill has dried up, but the memories of Keller’s Hill still flow in the minds of the minions of neighborhood kids who danced across its icy passage.

Friday, December 24, 2010

What is Your Name?

It is the first Christmas Eve that we will celebrate without out our patriarch and father sitting at the head of the table. The emotions are still raw and it will bring with it sadness. In all honesty though, we were blessed with him for many years. I had fifty-eight Christmas’ with him, my mother seventy. He had a long, fruitful life, passing away at ninty-two. Not all are so blessed.
It is Christmas Eve and for the last fifty years a little child has wandered into my mind. This child and her family never got to share many bright, Christmas mornings with toys and joy. They learned of sadness early on and I would think that the Christmas season for them would bring heartbreak and tears.
It was a mild, yet still chilly afternoon when the school bell rang to release the children to the waiting buses, nearby streets, or cars parked with parents at the helm. It was the day that school let out for the holiday. Children yelled with delight and danced into the waiting afternoon full of excitement and anticipation. I knew that my parents would pick me up in the large, shiny blue car, and therefore I could dawdle with my friends for a few more minutes before going out into the parking lot. The nuns kept us in tow so the busy buses could leave carrying the children to their homes a glitter with lights and decorations in expectations of Santa Claus and the baby Jesus. I was one of the last children to leave the school on that day and the sister walked me to my car. Behind her was a younger girl in a light tan sweater wrapped over her school uniform. She had long dark blond hair and looked lost and frightened. As we approached my parents’ car, my father rolled down his window to speak with the nun.
“Would you mind taking this child home? She missed her bus and it is too far a walk for her alone,” sister queried.
My father nodded in agreement and the waif scuttled into the back seat beside me.
She was younger than me and seemed to be a very shy girl. She had, though, a sweetness that permeated the car and offered a gentle sense of calmness that was elusive to children of that age, especially around Christmas. I asked her name and she replied, “Helen.” Then I inquired about her desires for the gifts she wished to appear magically under her tree in the coming days. She shrugged and said that she did not know. She seemed to be a content person with the simple joy of life and hope. Dad had a good idea of where she lived from speaking with sister, but he asked Helen to point out her home as we rambled down her street. She pointed to an unassuming house with a string of colored lights placed happily on a tree on the front yard. It was a house of a struggling family, one where only few gifts would be offered.
“Is someone home,” my mother asked.
“Yes, my older sister,” she quietly answered.
She seemed almost an angel as she slid from the car and with a heavenly smile said, “thank you.”
We watched as she went into the home and left when my parents were satisfied that she was safely inside with another there to watch her.
On Christmas Eve our family, at that time, went out to a fancy dinner and then home to happily await the arrival of toys and presents under the gaily decorated tree the next morning. Then after seeing what the “elf” had brought for us, we hurriedly dressed in our nice clothes and headed off to the children’s Christmas Mass at 9:00. This year was no different, almost.
As school children, we were herded into special pews reserved just for us. On this bright Christmas morning, the nuns, as they always did, awaited in the aisles as we entered and kneeled for our prayers. On this Christmas though there seemed to be a pallor draped around the adults. The nuns bowed their heads, not in worship, but in sadness. The altar boys rang the bell and everyone stood for the entrance procession and the start of Christmas Mass. The priest entered and bowed then immediately walked to the podium, instead of the center to begin the service. He looked over the crowded church and glanced at the votive lights in memory of those who have passed on.
“Today is Christmas,” he started. “Today I ask for each and every one to keep in their prayers a family of our children who perished in a fire early this morning.”
The church was hushed, no child made a sound, no adult whispered. Then there was a small, soft, sob.
We learned on that Christmas that some are called to God, even on Christmas Eve, even children. In the deep of the night the parents and one child worshipped at Midnight Mass. The wonderfully decorated, tinsel strewn tree, with glittering lights that awaited with some few gifts for the children’s delight, ignited. The flames licked the sky rising forever towards the heavens, taking with them little, angelic, waiflike Helen and four of her siblings.
I heard in the following years that the parents moved away and eventually had more children. Brothers and sisters that Helen would never know. They rose from the ashes and still retained a faith that was everlasting. Perhaps it is because they know that their little girl is still remembered even after fifty years by some stranger, some other little girl who once asked their child, “What is your name” on a chilly December day so long ago.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas Newsletter (Oh No, pleeeeeze no) 2010

December 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
It is that time once again to deck the halls. This year, instead, we are decking the water heater, the washer and dryer and hoping that nothing else breaks...but it will. The heater is on its last legs and my holiday wish is that after we get a new one that the old would use those legs and walk out of the house. It won’t, it will take grunting and shoving and cursing to get it out the door, much like the water heater, which by the way also had legs. Those legs weren’t made for walking, they were made for scratching, which is what they would have done to the floors had it not been for several hardy boys, who complained as they lifted because they were sore from a rousing game of football. Then off to the gym to lift weights. 

This year was a very sad one for us. Dad, aka Pop, decided that he had enough of not walking or eating his beloved steak and mushrooms, (or smelly pork kidneys) or fixing our houses and moved on to the great machine shop in the sky. It is very hard because we all miss him terribly. We not only miss his sage wisdom, “Don’t you have any common sense?” or his way with words, “Should I go down frontwards or backwards?” but we just miss him because he was who he was. He had his own language, as Gram puts it, “it’s all English, but it doesn’t make any sense.” He had his own way of doing things, “if I put it in this way, then no one will ever be able to figure it out, so I will put it in and let them worry.” We also miss his hands that fixed everything and then more, but they wouldn’t let us keep them. Life will never be the same for us, but now Kathy can have some time with him, and he can cringe when she says, “Dad’ll” (as in Dad’ll fix this and that) and I am sure Stanley and the rest of the crew are enjoying themselves with him as well. We all miss you Pop.

My mother is a tough old bird and is hanging in there although she has her sad days as do we all. She still enjoys sitting and reading, mostly true crime which she calls “blood n’ guts.” That always turns a head or two when she asks the book store clerk for the blood ‘n guts aisle. I plan on teaching her how to order her books on the internet, that way it will not make anyone shutter to see a “sweet” little almost 90 year old lady studying how to kill and not get caught. But on second thought, it may alert homeland security to her and one can only imagine the agents surrounding her house to rout her out. She does have a pretty good cover though.

This was a good year for Chris, even though he has not quite finished college; he was offered quite a plum job at Comcast Sportsnet. It is not really a plum job, it is that of a receptionist, but it is a job in his field and that makes it a plum job. He loves working in South Philly and he loves the sports that seem to play on a constant loop on the TV in front of his desk. Sometimes, I would imagine that they have to scrape him off the wall and tell him it is time to leave. He simply loves it. He also works for the Phillies part time and again he is in his glory, even if the Phillies aren’t. Maybe this year! We love his job too. IT IS A JOB and we get free cable and if I whine enough he secures tickets for me to go to concerts for FREE and they feed me as well. Heaven, I tell you. The best was the Paul McCartney concert which would have put me on a cloud, except I was eating too much and might have plummeted back to the stadium. Tom Petty was no slouch too. I also enjoyed the Trans-Siberian Orchestra once they got through the Christmas stuff.

Steve has moved along this year, in fact he literally moved on, to West Chester where he got his first apartment and moved in February, in the
snow. He is directly across from the courthouse and can hang out the window and see the activity going on below. He can also yell at the passing cars if they swing too close to his car, but he doesn’t. That is left for Mom to do, I can yell like a sailor when he opens the window. Oh well, he makes sure it is bolted tight when I come to visit. He is doing well and enjoys living on his own, except that the laundry mat, oops, I mean laundry pat is too far away, in Fort Washington, and he just leaves it and it magically is clean and folded when he comes back. He is also becoming quite a wonderful cook. At least, that is what I hear from those for whom he cooks. Looking forward to a dinner invite though, in the cool weather, with the window closed.

Matt is working his way through college as well as my nerves, but that is what 20 year olds do, and he may even some day graduate. Not for a while though. He works out quite a bit and has a bod like a Greek god, but when I ask him to lift something, he is too tired or too sore or too something and goes back to sleep. He is thinking of studying forensic psychology. I find that fascinating, that he is planning on studying, but he may easily change his mind since he is still unsure of what, other than playing videogames, he wants to do with his life. He still finds time for his friends and when they all convene here; they look like a coalition from the United Nations, plus they are mostly multi-lingual.

Speaking of foreign languages, Bill and I are taking EspaƱola. The first class found Bill arguing with the teacher about his name. He did not want to be called Gereramo, he wanted Bill. She claimed that there is no such name in Spanish. So they settled for BEEEELL. I guess that is ok, me llamo Patreeceea. Easy enough. So Beeeell can pronounce the words nicely while I mispronounce each and every one, very carefully. However, I am learning, yeah, I am learning that Beeeelllll has a much better aptitude for language than I, and for that matter so does Steve. He went through my lessons and without any background in Spanish whatsoever, corrected me, he, too has an ear and eye for language.

Jack is struggling with yet another malady. I feed him by hand four + times a day and he eats for me. It is difficult because he is getting old and so am I. It seems though that he is still in control of the household and hopefully has a few more lives in him. After all, he has me eating out of his hand, no, no it is the other way around, but you get my drift here.

Our vacation consisted of one day at the beach, without the guys and one day in NYC at a game with the guys, well a couple of them. After the game, we decided to amble around Times Square, for no reason other than to hurt our feet and to learn that the guys wanted to eat some more. We are generally unaware of what surrounds us. This was certainly true on that day. As we entered the subway station, we heard a siren. Hmmm, we thought, what is that, then the thought moved away as quick as the train. We had slowly and obliviously strolled past a bomb laden car, glanced over at it and kept shuffling on. Ah, that shows the trust of the American citizen, at least the dumbest of them, er us.
So we are winding our way towards another holiday, all in one piece, and hoping for a joyous year to all to come. If not joyous, then comfortable.

Happy Holiday to all, and to all a goodnight, at least for me, I’m tired.

Love,
Beeeellll, Patreeceea, Steve, Chris and Adonis aka Matt.