“High Skirt, Cold Coffee, and Warm Memories”
A Tribute
We flew past our last hope for breakfast at what seemed like two miles an hour. “Welcome to The Park De’ La Verandre’, Register Your Guns Here” read the sign on the marquee outside the Log Cabin Diner. The holder-of-food-and-hope was a single story affair on the left side of the road. Monster fish heads lined the exterior of the weather worn structure. Dad said they were Musky skeletons.
One pick-up truck parked under the marquee adorned the otherwise empty gravel lot. The tailgate was down. There was an axe, some chain, a canvas coat, and a helmet all heaped in a pile on the floor.
We were raising quite a cloud on the dirt highway. The endless Pine Trees lining either side of the road stood guard over the wilds just beyond our reach. “Are we there yet?” had been the mood in the car for hours. (Our royalties are still in question concerning that phrase but that’s a different story:-) )We crossed the border just south of Alexandria Bay New York over five hours before. We kids should have known we had quite a way to go. This wasn’t our first trip to Canada by a long shot. We should have known from years gone by nothing was near anything else in Canada… absolutely nothing.
Mom wasn’t here this trip. Our youngest brother Billy had only been with us a few years. Mom said after our last trip it was too much work to take a three-year old on a weeklong camping trip. I remember wondering what that meant. Even with Bill on our vacation to Val-Des-Bois last year, Dad and we other four boys sure did have fun. I don’t remember any extra work at all. Regardless of the pleading and the crying, Mom stayed home, with Bill.
I was nine in July of Nineteen-Sixty-one. My brother Chucky was fourteen, Ricky was eleven and three-quarters and Jimmy was seven … going on eight.
“Ssst,” Dad sounded like he’d sprung a leak as he pulled our car over to the side of the road.” “We gotta go back,” he said.
“Go back?” Chucky yelped, “We’re not gonna fish?
“Not go back home,” Dad barked with kind-of-a grin, “Back to the Diner; I’m almost out of cigarettes.” Chucky nodded his head like he knew what Dad meant all along and we were on our way.
Maybe we were gonna have breakfast after-all!
We were traveling back through the dust we stirred up on the trip out as Dad pulled out his hanky. His elbows balanced on the wheel as his eyes bugged out and he blew hard into a rag almost the size of the sheet on my bed back home. I dropped my hands from my ears and asked Dad if we could eat breakfast while we were there. He put his hand over his pocket as if to count his money and nodded his head up and down as he slid his hanky back in his back pocket.
“But I don’t want to take too long,” he said. “I want to get to the campsite early so we can fish tonight.”
“Sounds good to me!” I replied with a grin as I stuck my finger square in Jimmy’s rib to wake him up.
Another eternity and we were back at the Diner. We adventurers walked across the parking lot single file like a Gander with his goslings in tow. Dad had his Humphrey Bogart hat back over his Brylcreamed locks and a Pall Mall hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
The worn dark linoleum near the door sharpened to black and white checkerboard squares throughout the Diner. The long counter was ringed with stools looking not much different than red-capped mushrooms with chrome stems.
The Cook behind the counter had a bad case of belly-hangin’. His belly flowed over his belt unhindered as it reached half way to his knees. He wore a sleeveless athletic shirt with apparent pride almost as if to give the word athletic a bad name. On top of that, last nights’ menu surprise still adorned the more than ample belly shelf that protected his belt, legs, and feet from any direct assault on high. A rather large gap between his two front teeth, some random bristles for a beard, hairy arms and a baseball type cap that came into this world as white completed his attire. We might well have found the original Elmer Fudd… or perhaps his Dad.
Before Dad knew what was happening we boys broke away and spread out running across the Diner like an invading army. Each of us boys in the all-important process of picking out what each of us considered the best seat in the house, each with our own reasons for the decision. Once I claimed my own little piece of the Diner I put my hand on the bar and with a mighty shove I spun around and around and around. Jimmy then joined in and Ricky was already on his second go. “Calm down boys,” I heard Dad command in the distance.
The only other patron was seated in a booth on the other side of the room in front of the window. His checked flannel shirtsleeve was torn to fit the cast on his left arm. “Merci, Michelin” he said to the waitress with a wink from under his blue knit cap. “Oui’ Maurice,” she replied. She then turned and bounced in our direction to attend to her newly arrived hoard.
She broke through the waste-high door at the end of the counter as it responded with a thunk-thunk-thunk. She turned the corner and I, along with the rest of the hoard including Dad, set our faces with jack-o-lantern grins. This gal was almost as pretty as Mom. Dad must have thought so too. His chin was resting on his chest. His Pall Mall only hung on because it did, not because it was where it belonged…because it wasn’t.
I don’t mean to interrupt this story but I feel I must describe this gal.
Her hair was brown with golden shoulder length streaks. The sharpness of her pure white shoes had sharp contrast against her tanned, stocking covered legs. The seam on the back of her World War II vintage stockings seemed to go on forever. The brightness of her very short pure white skirt continued with her low cut freshly cleaned blouse. Her eyes were two pieces of coal in a sky of blue…
Sorry I was in the cloud again. Back to the story. Even at nine I was still of the male species…
Dad asked for a cup of coffee. His eyes like to fell out of his head as the waitress turned her back and reached over her head for the cup & saucer high on the wall. As she reached, her skirt rose high. Dad reached for the bed sheet in his back pocket but this time he didn’t blow. I think he lost his head because this time he wiped his brow. It was obvious he forgot what he used it for… before. My goodness Dad was red.
She delivered his cup and Dad set himself to action. He poured one half his coffee into his saucer and pushed the saucer aside. He filled the cup close to the brim with milk. He then added six spoons of sugar. After he stirred the spoon around once or twice and set it to cool a little more, he was a happy man. Back home Mom chipped coffee candy out of Dad’s cup of most every morning.
Mom adds a lot of sugar to my medicine sometime. “If coffee is that bad why does Dad drink it?” I asked as I nudged Chucky.
“I know what you mean Freddie, I just don’t know.” He replied with a twist in his lip.
All of a sudden my eye fell on one of my favorite things… food! Right next to the red and white Coca-Cola clock on the wall was a Kellogg’s cereal display. Each individually wrapped package held its own little wonder. Sugar Pops, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and the new flavor, Cocoa Puffs. Snap, Crackle and Pop had been one of Kellogg’s slogans. The only snap crackle and pop I presently hear is the sound of the grit from the road when I put my teeth together. I desperately need something to eat.
“Dad…,” I started to ask if I could have some Cocoa Puffs and milk.
“Shhh,” he interrupted. “Order a cup of coffee.” Dad said to Chucky with kind of a weird grin.
“Naw, No thanks Dad, I don’t like coffee,” he replied.
“Chick, Jimmy…Ricky, I mean Chucky! … I said order a cup of coffee!” Dad’s always mixing up his names. Dad’s Pall Mall bounced up and down between his lips with every word he spoke almost as if it had a life of its own. He then plucked the cigarette from his lips with the precision of a Gull lifting a minnow from the water. As he let his false teeth fall between his lips he said, “You don’t have to drink it, just order it,” he whispered with a wink and a smile. Dad does that thing with his teeth when he feels goofy.
“OK,” Chucky sadly complied, and ordered a cup of coffee. Dad was quiet once again… for a moment.
Our father almost fell off his stool as he yelped and jumped in the air swatting at his mouth in the process. I never saw Dad hit himself before. It seems he was so preoccupied for the last few minutes he didn’t realize his unfiltered cigarette had run out of places to burn… except his lip.
Dad was bright red again. I almost decided this may not be exactly the best time to pursue the Cocoa Puffs but I think good thinking isn’t my strong point at times, especially when food is mixed in the recipe. If I had been thinking properly I might have realized the waitress would ask for all our orders shortly after she ran out of clean cups but to be honest, that could be a while and I couldn’t wait. At that moment I realized my mission. It was obvious the waitress was busy and could not fill my needs so I decided to move on my own.
I was spinning from side-to-side-to-side on my red-capped mushroom as I looked at Chucky and then to the floor… I looked at Jimmy and then to the lights above… Side-to-side-to-side. I looked at Ricky and he looked like he was the only one concentrating on food like I was. As he attempted to lick the grit from his lips I realized we were on the same mission. With the unspoken support of my older brother I felt enough courage to venture away… with him. We slid off our chairs in unison almost as if we knew what the other was thinking, almost as if we were one. Dad was looking elsewhere and, of course, we knew where that was. The only person to witness our escape was the man with the cast across the way. He lifted his head with a slight grin on his face to acknowledge our move almost like he wished he could join. I wanted to tell him to tie the laces on his worn leatherwork boots but thought better of it. Instead, Ricky and I each jostled for the lead as we slid and slithered through the stools in front of the bar. I glanced back and saw Jimmy on the other side of Dad as he looked me square in the eyes. Dad interrupted him before he could say a word… I sure hope Jimmy would like the coffee I know Dad was telling him to order.
Around the corner and under the door we went. A little table covered in cloth with forks, spoons, and napkins on top blocked our way. We both decided it was a good place to stay invisible, a good place to decide what to do. We peered in the open icebox from under the table. There were eggs in a basket cushioned with straw, some cheese, a slab of bacon not yet sliced and a big chunk of some other kind of meat next to the butter. The final inhabitant resided in a clear glass jug. It might have been tea. WHERE WAS THE MILK?
We heard some pots and pans clanging around the corner out back but paid it no mind…
Now here I am some forty-five years later. Here we all are except Dad. He passed on nine years ago this coming December. Now the year is 2006.
Imagine that, forty-five years later.
You are no doubt wondering how Dad and we boys finished the wonderful adventure initiated back at the Park D’ La’ Verandre’ so many years ago. The truth of the matter is the adventure began many years prior to the Park and it will continue in the years to come. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge as they say. Chucky moved on to be “Charley.” Charley now lives outside Tampa Florida where he moved shortly after he finished his tour in Vietnam. The Mother of his two lovely daughters passed on some five years ago now. “Ricky” is now Rick. Rick and his wife live just outside Binghamton, New York having sired a wonderful clan of two sons and three daughters large enough to be a co-ed basketball team. Jimmy, now Jim, and his wife live outside Orlando not too very far from Charley. Jim has two wonderful gals just beginning their adult lives. Billy, still Billy to many of us, lives just outside Binghamton as well, with his wife, two daughters, and a son. The clan continues to grow.
How can this all be? I can’t help but ask again… how can this all be?
What of myself? Well, “Freddie” is still “Freddie” to some, Fred to most. This coming August my wife Starr and I will be celebrating our thirty-first wedding anniversary. Our daughter Tracy just received her Master’s Degree in Mathematics and is teaching at a area High-School.
How can this all be?
“Mom,” still and always, “Mom,” lives not far from Bill, Rick and I in New York State. I hear through the grapevine Mom is Eighty-years old now.
How can this all be?
I remember as a kid never really knowing how old either Mom or Dad happened to be at any given time. It just wasn’t a kid’s business back then. Forty years ago truly was a different world. Unless you lived it, you can’t really know. Just like every generation before us and every generation to follow, each generation is new and unique, thus one of the many wonders of life. Each of us, with our own inherent personality, pick up a few traits from either parent and build on that base with our reaction to outside influences that occur through life. The choices each of us make when confronted by life’s events, either good or bad, ultimately decide where life takes us and determine what kind of person we each turn out to be in the end.
How can this all be?
As I look down at my coffee this morning I see the milk separated from the brown liquid turned cold, just as it did for all us boys so many years ago back at the Park De’ La Verandre’. You see, Dad asked every one of us to order coffee on that July day in Nineteen-Sixty-One. All for the sake of a short skirt that rose high revealing more and more of the seam of the stockings covering her endless tanned legs as she reached higher and higher… and higher… Sorry, there I go drifting off again, back to the point.
Mom told me a few months ago Dad told her of his drooling as soon as he got back in town with her. I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all because I’ve found myself in such a mode of confessing really innocent events to my wife a few times over the years as well.
Why did I take you folks so abruptly from Nineteen-Sixty-One to Two-Thousand and Six? I suppose the answer to that is easy. I did it for the kids. I did it for my generation… I did it for me, but mostly, I did it for Mom. You see, the trip in Nineteen-Sixty-One of its’ self, was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That fifteen minutes outlined in the re-enactment went on and continued as if it had a life of its own. That particular story has been going on for the last forty-four years under its own steam and I didn’t even write most of it… How can that be? J It was but a piece of the journey. It was a piece of Dad’s story as it was a piece of Mom’s even though she stayed home that year. It was a piece of each of my brother’s saga, even though Bill was home with Mom. It was certainly a piece of my story. In the long hall, in some small way, it is still a piece of each of our children that followed and it will continue to be a yet a smaller piece of those yet to come. It will continue to be a piece of any we have all but the smallest influence over. The influence of the memories both good and bad will continue to be conveyed by the attitudes and personalities such memories built in each of us. We cannot deny the influence such wonderful memories have.
Because we each are the sum total of our Base Selves as Individuals,
The Influences of those we’ve Known,
The Things We’ve Done and Finally,
The Influences of those Events we’ve been exposed to…
I THANK YOU MOM AND DAD.
I Thank-You for exposing me to the event of The High Skirt J
I sincerely Thank-You for the Cold Coffee experience.
Most of all,
I Thank-You for the Warm Memories,
The Warm Memories that have so influenced my life.
How can this all be?
This can all be because of Mom… And Dad.
Thank-You Folks.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom, 2006.