Mr. Leech

On rare occasions as a high school student my father would invite me to go the museum where he worked. Perhaps my mother wanted to get rid of me during my school vacation or perhaps my father wanted to instill in me the joys of being an adult in the working world.

I did get a walk around the place and got to see an expert art restorer, Mr. Leech, at work. He had a painting and he was working with a cleanser and seemed to make the colors much brighter.

On snowy days when the buses weren't running I remember him calling the house. He lived in the Garden State like us and he was probably calling to ask dear old dad for a ride. He must have been in his eighties and I could hear his raspy German accent. Like all people who answer the phone and realize it is an unwanted call I had a distinct joy in my voice as I said, "Dad, it's Mr. Leech!"

Mr. Leech had a special cake he gave us every year. It was called a "poor man's cake" and apparently it was a vestige from the war when butter and eggs were not available. We ate it every Christmas.

I asked the old man why he gave us this treat every year. "It's because I always give him his check the day before pay day". The advantages of being an accountant.

Editor's note: Now available is my first Kindle book.

Snow days

Here is a post about being a kid and getting a snow day.

The man who knew Huncke

This is a blog I wrote for my Hard Times blog but I thought some of you might find entertaining, although it is definitely 1970s. It is an embellished version of how I moved to Denver.

the Eclipse of July 1963

As a kid, I always listened to what I was told, especially on the radio and TV. I remember I heeded all the warnings and hid in the basement one Saturday in July of 1963. The story was if you so much as glimpsed at the sun during that fateful afternoon you would be blinded for life.

My father and older brother somehow missed the advice. They were working on a trellis in the front yard when they noticed the sun looking weird.

"Look up at the sky!" my brother yelled. My father looked up. Several of the neighbors looked up.

"Doesn't the sun look weird!" my father said. They came and told me after the eclipse was over. I hate to admit it but I was a little disappointed that I wasn't the only sighted one in the family after that. Rather, things went on normally.

Editor's note: Don't look up at the sky on the 21st without the right eye ware. Prudence is the better part of valor.

Memorial day parade

Here is a post that describes Memorial Day in Hackensack.

Muhammad Ali vs. Brian London

Last week I heard about the Maryweather- Pacquiao fight after it was over, just like I discovered who Nirvana the band was after Kurt Curbain died. I'm not always up on major cultural events. I did, as a youth, follow heavyweight fights, and as a listener of Howard Cosel's radio minute, "Speaking of Sports" I was even a bit knowledgeable about the fighting world.

I first heard about Cassius Clay when he recited poetry on the Jack Paar Friday night show. Then I listened to the first Clay Liston fight on the radio with my father and brother. By that time most sports events were on tv but this was a throw-back to an earlier time because it was only on the radio unless you wanted to spend money at a theatre.

The 1967 Ali Brian London fight brought me a moment of glory in gym class. Probably the only moment of glory I ever had in that institution, as I sucked at all the activities (except maybe Jumping Jacks) that one partook of in such a place.

It was my knowledge of radio and dxing that brought me that moment of glory. It was the locker room after the showers and the young men were complaining about not being able to watch the fight the night before. I piped up, "I heard the fight on the radio!"

"It wasn't on the radio!" interjected Brave-heart.
"Yes it was, I picked it up from a station in Canada."
"Really?" Suddenly Willie Bassett, Buba Davis, and  Leroy Williams all looked at me and were impressed. My one moment of glory in gym class.

the Von Steuben House

New Jersey has plenty of places where George Washington slept and when I was in the Cub Scouts I had the priviledge of going to the Von Steuben House and seeing one of his haunts. Cub Scouts was a good introduction to the world of clubs that would occupy us baby boomers as we descended through life. I was part of Pack 19, affiliated with the Church on the Heights in Hackensack. My pack was led by Mrs. Fontanella. My mother had been a Pack mother earlier and she was tired of kids tearing up her house. It was better anyway, for me, to have a non relative as my leader.

Cub Scouts was okay. I can remember making lanyards. I was also cajoled into doing my Kennedy impersonation at one of the monthly pack meetings. I remember my one joke. "I lost my marbles. But I lost them with vim and vigor".

At any rate a group of maybe six of us made it to the Von Steuben House north of town. I remember there was an older woman who promised us that if we were good boys she would take us to the dungeon. I guess we were good because I remember we saw the jail and rack where they tortured prisoners. A colonial version of Fifty Shades of Grey.