By Barbara Groark
Have you seen the television commercial for Enablex, a pharmaceutical treatment for bladder control problems? The ones with the bouncing water balloons in different colors? It has a group of ‘balloons’ representing the class reunion of 1968, who all seem to have to run to the bathroom a lot. Aren’t we about 25 or 30 years too early for this representation? Shouldn’t we all write to the advertiser complaining that the reunion year ought to be somewhere in the 1940s or early 1950s? The writers must be about 23 (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
I grew up in Cinnaminson on the Moorestown side of Route 130, versus the Delaware River side. My family moved there when I was nine and my mother was pregnant with her fifth child (there would be six). My parents grew up in West Philadelphia, married and moved to Clifton Heights, Pennsylvania, and then we moved to “the country” as my Irish Aunt Win called it, that is, South Jersey. My grade school was Sacred Heart School in Riverton, a few blocks from the river, where the nuns were from Boston and Nova Scotia and had very funny peaked hats and tried to turn us all into little princes and princesses. Before the new parish of St. Charles Borromeo (famous now for its June carnival) was started, we all took the long bus ride on Riverton Road from our bare-new-tree and new-split-level-house side of the highway through leafy Riverton, across the old tracks (now the River Line) to the school, whose original church with its dark-red-painted, wood-slat siding, was built in 1892 for the Irish girls, of which several were relatives of mine (one of the Brennan families), who were the maids in many of the big houses along the waterfront and through the town. The ride was like taking a trip back through time every day, and I occasionally still have dreams of riding along this road. The bus driver was Father Delzell, who occasionally sang to keep us all quiet. He was a very good tenor. We’d hear him again singing the litany amazingly during First Friday afternoons in church. It was interesting to see him in the bus, and then “on stage” in dramatic gold vestments.
But my first school, where I went to first and second and started third grade, was called Holy Cross School in Springfield, Pennsylvania. My first-grade class had 70 or so students, and there were four first grades. My sister Pat started school a year later, and there were 95 or so kids in her particular class, again with four classes of the grade. Our Christmas pageants and May processions were conducted with military precision, with a lot of standing and waiting with folded hands, and I can see now that this was the only way to proceed with numbers like these. The alternative was not to do any of these things, but I think the nuns really needed to get out of the classroom once in a while. I’m much more sympathetic nowadays with those teachers (especially after I taught second grade for a year in Camden).
My third-grade class in the new school, Sacred Heart, had only about 50 kids, and there were only two classes of each grade. (Marie Griffin, Eileen Costello, Janet Sanford, Christine Hill, correct me if I’m wrong on this.) I was pretty good at spelling bees, and have the Miraculous Medals to prove it. Well, I don’t really still have them, but what I’m trying to say is that these numbers were just ordinary to us. Most families had several kids in different grades, with more coming along.
In fact, in Cinnaminson alone, I can name ten families of ten or more children, all Catholic, some of whom moved through Holy Cross High School later. OK, I’ll do it: Vassallos, Rineharts, Kostiuks, Corrs, mmmmmmmm. Well, I confess that, even after consulting my sisters, I can only remember four family names. I used to have them on the tip of my fingers. Guess I’ll have to do a memory dump of more recent useless information, of which there is quite a lot, so I can get back to these important facts.
And then in Holy Cross High School there were the Moseleys and Callahans from Moorestown, with Mary and Kate (or Mary Kate, or Mary Kay, what did you finally settle on?) in our class, and I think the Zehlers were ten. (Or was it fewer, Annette?) Who else?
So perhaps birth control was inevitable after that. One father of a family of ten once said to me, “If all my kids have ten kids, I’m moving to California.”
However, if all the smart people used birth control, why do we have the Congress that we have today? How smart were they?
But how can I criticize? I have no children, a condition not unheard of in people from large families. And we were only six, only average-to-large numbers for that time.
And now that we are in the third quarter of our life span, the financial marketplace advises us to put our supposed millions into medical care, pharmaceuticals, and other services for the aged. Invest in our decrepitude. The numbers will be staggering. That’s something to think about, isn’t it?
I once sat down at a table at an event with a woman, maybe five years older than our graduating class, whose husband as a side job had just made an album of doo-wop music and was traveling around New Jersey with his group. Her view of the financial advice to our age group was, “Nursing homes? Sitting at home in rocking chairs wringing our hands? This is what they are telling us? Sorry, something livelier please - I’m not done yet!”
Me neither. Not that we’ll be training for the Olympics, but there’s no need to rush things.
Occasionally, though, I see a thought on the horizon, and I wait for it to come in closer so I can see what it is, but it just hangs out there. What’s up with that?
Here’s a poem by Billy Collins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEPJh14mcU
Friday, April 4, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
And Now for Something Completely Different
By Barbara Groark
So where are our old comedians from the class of 1968? Don’t we need an hour or half-hour of comedy cabaret for reunion weekend? Where’s Greg Micucci? Steve Boyle? Ken Fenimore? Bill Elliott? Who am I forgetting? Do you realize some of these very same people have children who are graduates of HCHS? That's pretty serious. And how about some people who didn’t used to be funny – maybe they were too appalled to speak back then – but now they ready to speak up? Step forward to the Reunion Committee when you get the chance. At the moment they have a DJ ready for that Saturday night but are loose as to the rest of the entertainment.
Comedy has changed a bit since 1968. “Blue” comedy was always there in the minority, but a decade or so ago there seemed to be nothing else out there. I remember the time my sisters and I decided to take my mother to a comedy club as a treat for her maybe 70th birthday. The club was in the former Sheraton Hotel on Route 70 – sounds classy, right? We however all sat at a nice booth with some drinks and waited, comedian after comedian, for something funny to be said or done. We left early and apologized to Mom, who took it in stride.
Why is it that women generally don’t find bathroom and body function humor to be that funny? Is it because most of them have changed so many diapers in their time (and most fathers who are participators know how to change them too), they’d rather think about something else? And how often can you laugh at the same four-letter words, even in a nervous way?
But I have to admit, now that I’m – well you know how old I am – my sense of humor is adjusting some. For example, I used to hate The Three Stooges, but now I think they’re kind of sweet after doing some research on Comedy Central a few years ago. Is it something about reaching middle age that allows a woman to reconcile with her inner 10-year-old boy? And if you get a chance to see the Disney Goofy World of Sports, particularly the baseball game, you might enjoy it. I used to hate Goofy too, always doing things wrong, but now in adulthood, I appreciate the pratfalls and slapstick much more. They don’t remind me of any old boss or someone I used to know, but of myself walking into walls and blindly barreling over a cliff.
I still hate and won’t watch Funniest Home Videos though. Some of these people look like they actually are being injured.
But the reason we took our mother to the comedy club is that she is the funny person of the family, and also the most organized. And a lot of comedy is playing with a sense of order by turning it upside down. Growing up at our house, we had our assignments, but then were free to play and dance and kid around within the framework. In fact, I usually judge a comedian on television by the standards established at our family dinner table, particularly the weeknight meal in the kitchen.
Here’s a typical mealtime. Ten minutes before dinner would be ready, my mother would call one of the older three or four girls (I’m oldest) to set the table and fix drinks. Most weeknights this was milk for all the children. Mom would have no beverage with her meal but would have a teapot steeping for after dinner. In summer, the assignee would fix the iced tea, which was homemade and cooling on the window sill in a large pot. The assignee would remove the tea bags, measure the right amount of sugar and lemon juice, after squeezing the lemons, and pour the mixture into a large pitcher. She would then get the glasses down from the cabinet, fill them with ice cubes, and pour the tea. Milk was much simpler, but beyond toddler stage, we all had iced tea in the summer.
Then we’d all be called to sit down at our assigned seats and wait the few minutes for the food to be put on the table. We could sip our drinks. We might eat salad if there was one. We had to be good. We were not allowed to fight or argue, but we were allowed to talk and be funny. In fact, that was the point of dinner time, to make each other laugh. Our audience level was wide ranging, from pretty darn smart to a future Special Olympics participant. Some of the content was the usual family chiding and joking over the events of the day, but we weren’t allowed to call anyone stupid or be mean. We had to stay within a certain volume and language level, since Mom was within reach just at the counter. Some of this was pretty funny. If you’ve ever attended the birthday party of a ten-year-old, boy or girl, you know what I mean.
When Mom sat down we would decide on which direction to pass the food, or else Mom would serve each plate, in reverse birth order, youngest first, if there was a hot casserole or spaghetti. I learned how to bide my time that way. When everyone had food, usually one of us would say grace, with a sign of the cross to open and a sign of the cross to close, and then we could begin eating. Grace has an effect similar to that of the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the school day or the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of a ball game: to serve as a reminder to be on good behavior, to remember our table manners, to calm any high jinks that might be going on for the period of the meal. And incidentally to thank God for our daily bread. We would now eat in peace, no elbows on the table, no reaching.
On some unusual occasions, there might be an incident outside the rules of decorum. My sister Kathleen (by the way now a CPA living in South Carolina with her daughter) one time had an exchange with my mother at the table such that Kathleen for her own safety bolted from the table and ran out one kitchen doorway, through the dining room, past the other kitchen doorway, and up the stairs. My mother was seated next to that second kitchen doorway. She picked up her glass of iced tea. She moved through the doorway to the foot of the stairs. Kathleen stood at the top of the stairs looking down, out of my mother’s reach, daring her to chase her, ready to run into her bedroom. My mother faked a throw of the full glass of iced tea. We all laughed at the idea, a little relieved she was feeling more mischievous than angry.
Then she leaped halfway up the steps and actually did throw the full contents of the iced tea glass at Kathleen, getting her soaked, with some dripping on the gold carpet. A moment of shocked silence on everyone’s part, including Kate’s, was followed by a burst of laughing from everyone, including my mother. The problem of Kate’s cold, wet clothes was solved somehow. I don’t remember when the rug was cleaned up, probably the next morning by Herself while we were at school.
Comedy tweaks the authorities, pokes at pomposity wherever it shows up, allows people to commiserate about problems in their lives without killing anybody. It should be some kind of medicine. The best comic includes himself in the joke. He’s also only human. Otherwise, he’s just a harridan.
However, some medicine is like a vaccination – a little of the disease injected so the antibodies against it can be created. A few years ago, I took my mother and her sister Mary, both in their eighties now and both still alert to politics, to see the movie Primary Colors, a political movie that, among other things, satirized the language used by a set of people who uses the f-bomb as a noun, adjective, verb, and conjunction. The characters were all young and well-educated but must have lived in fear of their lives every day – I personally reserve the expletive for the rare instances when my life is threatened, such as being cut off while driving in traffic. And I never heard my mother or Aunt Mary use the word, though a few hells and damns have passed their lips. So I was a little sheepish in the first few minutes in the theatre and kept glancing at them in the dark to gauge their reactions. But after a while, they started laughing and rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. They did get what I believe the writers were doing: like kids in the school yard, or in a family of brothers and/or sisters, the writers were saying “Look, here’s you –” and mimicking someone’s behavior – possibly in the hope of possibly correcting it? Maybe that’s it.
And as the final credits were rolling at the end and we stood up to leave the theatre, my Aunt Mary said clearly, “That was a fucking good movie.”
But the word did not become part of her regular vocabulary, as it possibly would with a ten-year-old who got a laugh with it.
So where are our old comedians from the class of 1968? Don’t we need an hour or half-hour of comedy cabaret for reunion weekend? Where’s Greg Micucci? Steve Boyle? Ken Fenimore? Bill Elliott? Who am I forgetting? Do you realize some of these very same people have children who are graduates of HCHS? That's pretty serious. And how about some people who didn’t used to be funny – maybe they were too appalled to speak back then – but now they ready to speak up? Step forward to the Reunion Committee when you get the chance. At the moment they have a DJ ready for that Saturday night but are loose as to the rest of the entertainment.
Comedy has changed a bit since 1968. “Blue” comedy was always there in the minority, but a decade or so ago there seemed to be nothing else out there. I remember the time my sisters and I decided to take my mother to a comedy club as a treat for her maybe 70th birthday. The club was in the former Sheraton Hotel on Route 70 – sounds classy, right? We however all sat at a nice booth with some drinks and waited, comedian after comedian, for something funny to be said or done. We left early and apologized to Mom, who took it in stride.
Why is it that women generally don’t find bathroom and body function humor to be that funny? Is it because most of them have changed so many diapers in their time (and most fathers who are participators know how to change them too), they’d rather think about something else? And how often can you laugh at the same four-letter words, even in a nervous way?
But I have to admit, now that I’m – well you know how old I am – my sense of humor is adjusting some. For example, I used to hate The Three Stooges, but now I think they’re kind of sweet after doing some research on Comedy Central a few years ago. Is it something about reaching middle age that allows a woman to reconcile with her inner 10-year-old boy? And if you get a chance to see the Disney Goofy World of Sports, particularly the baseball game, you might enjoy it. I used to hate Goofy too, always doing things wrong, but now in adulthood, I appreciate the pratfalls and slapstick much more. They don’t remind me of any old boss or someone I used to know, but of myself walking into walls and blindly barreling over a cliff.
I still hate and won’t watch Funniest Home Videos though. Some of these people look like they actually are being injured.
But the reason we took our mother to the comedy club is that she is the funny person of the family, and also the most organized. And a lot of comedy is playing with a sense of order by turning it upside down. Growing up at our house, we had our assignments, but then were free to play and dance and kid around within the framework. In fact, I usually judge a comedian on television by the standards established at our family dinner table, particularly the weeknight meal in the kitchen.
Here’s a typical mealtime. Ten minutes before dinner would be ready, my mother would call one of the older three or four girls (I’m oldest) to set the table and fix drinks. Most weeknights this was milk for all the children. Mom would have no beverage with her meal but would have a teapot steeping for after dinner. In summer, the assignee would fix the iced tea, which was homemade and cooling on the window sill in a large pot. The assignee would remove the tea bags, measure the right amount of sugar and lemon juice, after squeezing the lemons, and pour the mixture into a large pitcher. She would then get the glasses down from the cabinet, fill them with ice cubes, and pour the tea. Milk was much simpler, but beyond toddler stage, we all had iced tea in the summer.
Then we’d all be called to sit down at our assigned seats and wait the few minutes for the food to be put on the table. We could sip our drinks. We might eat salad if there was one. We had to be good. We were not allowed to fight or argue, but we were allowed to talk and be funny. In fact, that was the point of dinner time, to make each other laugh. Our audience level was wide ranging, from pretty darn smart to a future Special Olympics participant. Some of the content was the usual family chiding and joking over the events of the day, but we weren’t allowed to call anyone stupid or be mean. We had to stay within a certain volume and language level, since Mom was within reach just at the counter. Some of this was pretty funny. If you’ve ever attended the birthday party of a ten-year-old, boy or girl, you know what I mean.
When Mom sat down we would decide on which direction to pass the food, or else Mom would serve each plate, in reverse birth order, youngest first, if there was a hot casserole or spaghetti. I learned how to bide my time that way. When everyone had food, usually one of us would say grace, with a sign of the cross to open and a sign of the cross to close, and then we could begin eating. Grace has an effect similar to that of the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the school day or the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of a ball game: to serve as a reminder to be on good behavior, to remember our table manners, to calm any high jinks that might be going on for the period of the meal. And incidentally to thank God for our daily bread. We would now eat in peace, no elbows on the table, no reaching.
On some unusual occasions, there might be an incident outside the rules of decorum. My sister Kathleen (by the way now a CPA living in South Carolina with her daughter) one time had an exchange with my mother at the table such that Kathleen for her own safety bolted from the table and ran out one kitchen doorway, through the dining room, past the other kitchen doorway, and up the stairs. My mother was seated next to that second kitchen doorway. She picked up her glass of iced tea. She moved through the doorway to the foot of the stairs. Kathleen stood at the top of the stairs looking down, out of my mother’s reach, daring her to chase her, ready to run into her bedroom. My mother faked a throw of the full glass of iced tea. We all laughed at the idea, a little relieved she was feeling more mischievous than angry.
Then she leaped halfway up the steps and actually did throw the full contents of the iced tea glass at Kathleen, getting her soaked, with some dripping on the gold carpet. A moment of shocked silence on everyone’s part, including Kate’s, was followed by a burst of laughing from everyone, including my mother. The problem of Kate’s cold, wet clothes was solved somehow. I don’t remember when the rug was cleaned up, probably the next morning by Herself while we were at school.
Comedy tweaks the authorities, pokes at pomposity wherever it shows up, allows people to commiserate about problems in their lives without killing anybody. It should be some kind of medicine. The best comic includes himself in the joke. He’s also only human. Otherwise, he’s just a harridan.
However, some medicine is like a vaccination – a little of the disease injected so the antibodies against it can be created. A few years ago, I took my mother and her sister Mary, both in their eighties now and both still alert to politics, to see the movie Primary Colors, a political movie that, among other things, satirized the language used by a set of people who uses the f-bomb as a noun, adjective, verb, and conjunction. The characters were all young and well-educated but must have lived in fear of their lives every day – I personally reserve the expletive for the rare instances when my life is threatened, such as being cut off while driving in traffic. And I never heard my mother or Aunt Mary use the word, though a few hells and damns have passed their lips. So I was a little sheepish in the first few minutes in the theatre and kept glancing at them in the dark to gauge their reactions. But after a while, they started laughing and rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. They did get what I believe the writers were doing: like kids in the school yard, or in a family of brothers and/or sisters, the writers were saying “Look, here’s you –” and mimicking someone’s behavior – possibly in the hope of possibly correcting it? Maybe that’s it.
And as the final credits were rolling at the end and we stood up to leave the theatre, my Aunt Mary said clearly, “That was a fucking good movie.”
But the word did not become part of her regular vocabulary, as it possibly would with a ten-year-old who got a laugh with it.
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