I have alway lived in a brick house, it seems. I don’t mind. They are usually cool in the summer but they can be quite drafty and cold in the autumn and winter.
In 1963, I was only four years old. At the time, our house was at least 80 years old with large windows that were not air tight.
The house was double-brick meaning there was a rough layer on the inside and a finished layer on the exterior. I always wondered if the bricks came from foundries from the Hudson River near Newburgh. It was well built and still stands firm in the Village of Bloomingburg.
The living room and dining room had wooden floors and if it wasn’t for the large and old area rugs, you would feel the draft coming up from the basement in the winter.
We had two basements. A staircase from the dining room led you to one basement while the other was accessed by stairs under the back staircase. It was really one basement but there was a foundation wall separating the two. It was dark and damp down there. My parents bought the house with all the fixtures and contents. In one area of the basement there still sat Ball jars full of canned tomatoes. They must have been there for a decade or two. Of course, we never ate them, but we never threw them away either.
My parents bought the house around 1962. My father, a WWII veteran, was able to secure a VA mortgage from First Federal Savings Bank in Middletown. Their lawyer at the closing was Ben Gilman, who would later serve as our local Congressman for three decades. Such a beautiful man. I grew up with his son, David and my sister went to Hebrew nursery school with his daughter Ellen who was killed in a car accident on Route 209 at a young age. David Gilman died young as well.
Around this time, my parents made the local newspaper, The Times Herald-Record. They were photographed doing their taxes in the office of James Rich, tax accountants at 71 East Main Street in Middletown. I have to find that picture. I may be in it as well.
My first memory of our house was in the formal living room where the previous owner (an elderly lady) had left piles of books. There were French doors separating the dining and living room which would later be removed.
There were six bedrooms but only one was finished. We would forever call that room “the first bedroom.”
The plaster walls were in good shape. But, as I got older, I managed to pick a hole in the wall next to my bed. At first, it was a small hole. But I kept picking until I found horse hairs in the plaster. I kept digging and discovered the wooden slats. By the time I finished exploring, I left a hole the size of a basketball. All that picking earned me a nickname. Mommy would call me ‘itchy fingers’ while my sister was calling me ‘flitting butterfly.’ The monikers fit us perfectly as my sister would eventually dance ballet and flit like a gazelle. Thank God I didn’t eat the plaster because there was certainly lead in the old paint.
On a November day in 1963, I was playing on the family room floor with my back against a daybed while facing a black-and-white television. My sister, still an infant, was probably in her crib or playing with me. My father was working in NYC.
It was the afternoon and my mother was liked watching soap operas on television but she nodded off. In 1963, she had been working double-shifts at Hamilton Avenue Hospital in Monticello and was always tired.
Suddenly, the television went black and there was a frantic male voice which said, FLASH! The President has just been shot.
I was scared.
I jumped up and grabbed my mom and shook her screaming, “THE PRESIDENT, THE PRESIDENT” I didn’t know exactly what happened but I was shaken by the announce…
I had to stop writing. I broke down. I don’t cry easily these days but the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy has left some trauma. I don’t think I am alone.
At four, I loved Astro Boy, Mitch Miller and JFK. I had carved “Astro Boy” into my mom’s cedar chest where she kept special memories, including her wedding dress. I stood in front of the TV and sang along with Mitch. Kennedy was “my President”
A somber Thanksgiving
The next few days was a living hell. My mother cried though she tried to hide it. The television became a constant news stream.
Kennedy was executed on Friday the 22nd.
The next day, I was in front of the television when Lee Harvey Oswald, the presumptive assassin, was escorted out of the police station. He was walking down several dimly-lit corridors surrounded by sheriff deputies. Just before Oswald was to get in a police car, Jack Ruby shot him. My first time witnessing a death on live TV.
It may seem strange that I would remember all these things at four, but I do.
I can still hear the voice of Walter Cronkite reporting.
My President’s body laid in state for 24 hours. His flag-draped coffin was atop a horse-drawn caisson.
On the third day, Monday, there was a funeral service and Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetary. Not only was the coffin closed, the case was closed. Let’s move on, they said, nothing to see here. Three bullets, one assassin, no conspiracy, said FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and the Warren Commission.
Thanksgiving fell on the 28th that year. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and candied yams were on our plates. Our stomachs were full but the soul of America was aching. Something very, very dark occurred during this time.
I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me
— Sympathy For The Devil, The Rolling Stones
Thanksgiving was only the four of us.
In later years, Dottie, would with us for Thanksgiving Dinner. Helen Gerow, who lived with us for many years, would be with us for Thanksgiving.
The table was set in the dining room which had a Spanish marble mantle over the fireplace. My mom would later paint the walls pink with white trim around the doors and baseboard. My mother loved pink. Over the dining room table was a crystal chandelier. We could look outside over a three-bay window to the car in the driveway.
My mom would start cooking early in the morning. I don’t know what specifically my sister did to help in the kitchen, but I know I had to chop onions and celery.
Wishes do come true
People today don’t refer to books very often. Sadly enough.
It seemed to me that every kitchen I knew, including ours, had a Betty Crocker Cookbook.
Somewhere near the phone, which was dialed by putting your finger in the number hole and turning clockwise, was a phone directory with Yellow Pages. We didn’t have fancy buttons to press in 1963.
Somewhere in the parlor, you could find a Farmer’s Almanac, a copy of Life magazine, and numerous National Geographic to look through.
Mothers were still reading The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock. Nope. Not the same Dr. Spock in the TV series, Star Trek. And kids had at least one copy of a Dr. Seuss book. We had Green Eggs and Ham. Not for breakfast, of course. To read.
Then their was the family Bible. Ours was white with pages that you could write in your family history. I liked that part of the book. Ours had many pictures depicting the stories of Samson and Delilah, Moses and Jesus with pretty angels as pale as ghosts.
But a child’s favorite book which arrived around Thanksgiving was the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Now, you would see it as a catalog. But we called it The Wish Book. I am sure the day after Thanksgiving was a day to shop. But I don’t remember calling it Black Sunday. We went shopping in the Wish Book which was full of toys in full color. And we would make a list and dream about all those toys we wanted for Christmas. And sometimes, no matter how bad we behaved, Santa Claus would put it under our tree. But we were always good children back then.
Writing is like eating a frog. You have to sit in one place alone, express yourself, review what you have written and then publish.
I have not been giving my time to this process mostly because I write about the past while trying to maintain my present. But I will endeavour to write, review and publish more consistently. I am getting a taste for the frog by waking at 5AM. I don’t touch my phone. I sit, I write.