Recipes (I heard your eyes roll!)

Members of the Silver Cloud Harbor Marina contributed almost 250 Recipes to a Marina Recipe Book.

I'd submitted three recipes, and will share them with you here.

Title:  Abby-Gale's I Don't Know Creamsicle Shake

Category:  Appetizers, Beverages & Dips

Ingredients:  Vanilla Ice Cream,
Milk,
Cointreau,
Triple Sec

Instructions:  You're making a vanilla ice cream shake in your blender. I don't know how much ice cream to put in, it depends on how much you want.
You can put a little milk in, depending on how thick you want it. I don't know how much. Thickness is a very personal decision.
You can add a shot of Triple Sec, but, I don't know, you can always add more than a shot.
You can add a shot of Cointreau, or maybe more, I don't know how much you like it.
Cointreau and Triple Sec are both orange-flavored liqueurs, but they're very different.
Cointreau costs a little more, but has a great, not-too-sweet orange flavor.
Triple Secs tend to be sweeter.
The two should give your drink a rich orange flavor, but I don't know, you could use just one of them if you want. If you decide to do that, spring for the Cointreau. (You might also like it naked, on the rocks.)
I don't know what you want to serve it in, but I'd serve it in big glasses, just like you'd want to get a milk shake in (with a straw and a cherry and/or whipped cream on top?)
I don't know if you'll like it, but if you don't, you didn't make it right. You need to follow the directions more closely.

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Title:  Jackie's First Summer Drink

Category:  Appetizers, Beverages & Dips

Ingredients: Friend,
Fresca,
Breath mints

Instructions:  These instructions must be followed very carefully! 
Go over to your friend's house - that friend whose parents drink too much.
Fill a large glass with ice-cubes.
Fill the glass 2/3 of the way up with Fresca.
(You may have to go back in time to get it. If you do, I suggest 1965.)
This next part is very important.
Get the gallon bottle of gin from your friend's parents' alcohol supply.
With a pencil, lightly mark the initial level of the gin on the bottle.
Fill the glass the rest of the way with gin. Mix/swirl with your index finger.
Repeat for all others who are present. (They can use their own index fingers.)
Add water to the gin bottle to bring the level back up to the initial mark.
Erase the pencil mark. Return the bottle to its unlocked storage place.
Enjoy!


(Don't forget the breath mints!)

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Title:  Rosemary's 911 Chili

Category:  Main Dishes & Meats

Ingredients: 1 can dark red kidney beans,
1 can black beans,
1 can chick peas,
1 bottle sliced jalapeno peppers,
1 can diced tomatoes with zesty mild green chilies,
1 can diced tomatoes with rosemary and oregano,
1 package whole mushrooms,
1-2 pounds of cubed meat - beef and/or pork,
1 can Progresso Traditional Beef Barley soup (19 oz.),
shredded cheese,
500 mL Chianti 



Instructions:  I use a Presto Multicooker which cooks much faster than a crock pot. This could also be cooked in a pot on the stove.
Layer the components and let them remain layered for at least an hour before stirring.
On the bottom, place the cubed meat.
Pour the jalapeno juice over the meat (drain the bottle of its juice)
Layer the beans on top of the meat.
Layer the diced tomatoes on top of the beans.
Pour the soup on top.
Lay whole mushrooms on top with the jar of peppers (optional)

When layered, the meat cooks first and is marinated in the pepper juices. Flavor from the peppers on top works it's way down while cooking. The soup makes a great chili base. Allow mushrooms to float on top and they will absorb many of the flavors. Cook for at least two hours on medium heat, stirring after one hour. Stir well before serving. Serve in bowls with cheese on top. Add one full mushroom to each bowl. Drink the Chianti. If the entire bottle of peppers is used, dial "91" on your cell phone, so that you will only need to dial the last "1" if you're not prepared for the "flavor."

© 2012 John Allison

The Art of Housepainting

Some of my earliest memories include watching the hands of my father as he painted around the house.  Occasionally he would explain some things to me, but mostly he was happy that I was watching what he did - and I still remember all that he taught me. My father was a very good painter.  I've watched "professionals" slap paint on with a brush, and roll or spray large sections, looking completely bored through it all.  Not so with my father.  He almost always used a brush.  If he was painting the dining room, it was a good time to "get to know the walls and trim".  Every square inch was personally inspected by him, every centimeter got his attention, as he worked.  Sometimes he'd find a nail hole from a picture we used to have hanging, that he forgot about, and would take the time to fill it, before painting over it.  Maybe there was a paint chip that came off; he would sand over it so that little spot would look good again.  He taught me not to just put paint on something, but to really "work the paint in".  I've found that I go through more paint than others, and my job always last longer.  Painting wasn't a chore, it was something that he enjoyed - he took pride in his work.  Usually, he would use a round brush - not a flat brush - round.  Their official name is an oval sash brush.  These brushes held lots of paint, and were very versatile.  Of course, this was back when paint brushes were not throw-aways (and weren't made with a sponge).  After you painted, you'd get the turpentine, or the paint thinner, or maybe even some gasoline if you had nothing else, clean the brush, possibly even soak it for a few days to get most of the paint off, then wrap it in a paper towel so that it could slowly dry and be supple and soft for the next job, even if that was a few years later.  When he had really big jobs, like one summer when he was on strike from Westinghouse and got the job painting the inside of an entire elementary school (Pusey Avenue School), of course he used a roller - there was no other way to cover that much area in a reasonable amount of time.  But you'd frequently see him going over parts of the wall with a brush, once he finished with the roller, just smoothing spots out, making sure it was all up to his standards. 

Whenever I paint, it gives me a moment with my Dad again.  Light and heavy strokes, dabs, twists of the brush, I watched him work, learned his tricks, and learned how to paint just like him.  This was also a time when people didn't tape off a room before they started painting.  He didn't need tape on the trim when painting the wall, he would paint the wall without getting paint on the trim! People trivialize the process - you got a brush, you got the paint, there you go.  But there were people who painted to create something of quality, that would last, in an act that was satisfying, relaxing and enjoyable.  Quality of workmanship - sometimes it seems like a lost concept.  I never appreciated it at the time.  Kids are like that.

© 2012 John Allison

Allison Family Meetings

I was an only child.  It was easy for my parents to talk with me whenever they wanted, but we would occasionally have "official" family meetings around the dining room table.  Every Fall we would have a snow meeting.  We would get the wooden bobble-headed fat-man savings bank off the dining room window sill (right above the radiator).  He would be the fourth member of the meeting.  We would each put a dollar into him.  This was a lot of money, but we were big time gamblers.  On each dollar, we would write our prediction for when Philadelphia would get its first snowfall (which we looked forward to).  I always picked my birthday, November 14, my mother would pick her birthday, December 13, and my father, a "summer baby", would usually pick my grandmother's birthday, December 14, or Christmas.  For those three days, we constantly watched the skies, hoping that any of the three of us would win.  If no snow fell by the end of the year, the contents would remain and be added to the winnings for the next Fall.

I recall two very important family meetings that we had when I was young (and many others, which I had to call, as my parents aged).  My mother became infatuated by the commercials on TV, and magazine ads for COOL cigarettes.  Those who smoked them apparently really enjoyed them, and had wonderful lives, although we had no idea what enjoying a cigarette meant, since neither of my parents smoked.  Dad and I were surprised when Mom called a meeting and set a saucer and an unopened pack of Cools on the table, along with a book of matches.  I couldn't imagine her actually buying cigarettes!  I was 10 at the time and it was 1961.  To our surprise, Mom invited Dad and I to join her in discovering the joys of smoking Cools.  We were each dealt our own cigarette, which we awkwardly lit up.  Just like on TV, we tried to look casual and wealthy as we inhaled, prepared to exhale that relaxing smoke.  We coughed, we choked, we ran for glasses of water; we almost died.  None of us ever touched a cigarette again.  (If you want to make sure your kids or grandkids never smoke, I highly recommend this approach.)

I also very much remember a family meeting that we had after my third 5th grade report card came out (1962).  My mother brought it to the table.  My father brought our family dictionary.  My teacher had used a word that none of us has ever heard before.  My mother first read Mrs. Miller's comment.  "John is a bit flippant."  I suggested that it meant well groomed.  My father looked it up, and read the definition to us all.  Apparently my definition was incorrect.  A substantial discussion followed.  Looking back at my old report cards, I'm reminded that prior to that meeting, my mother always signed them.  (They always had to be signed and returned.)  After that meeting, my father always signed, and always wrote a note back to the teachers, adding up to quite a continued dialog in those years that followed.  While I may not have been the best student academically from that point on, I definitely took it more seriously, and treated the teachers with the respect they deserved.  They did, after all, have the ultimate power - their short notes could lead to family meetings, and I didn't want to be looking up any other new words around the dining room table ever again.

© 2012 John Allison

Photomining at Dan's

I was very fortunate to live on a street that had a corner store.  It was officially called McCloskey's, but everyone called it Dan's.  Dan had a permanent grouchy look on his face, whenever a kid came in.  We'd usually be there to bring a soda bottle back (and get two cents) so we could buy some penny candy, but I would often be there to get milk or cigarettes for a neighbor lady.  I don't think he made a lot selling me penny candy, but it was a very interesting little store.  For a building about the size of a row house it seemed to have just about everything.  Of course, the oven cleaner sat on the shelf next to the candy, but they used every inch of space. What I remember most is the density of the store. Dan's was a functional, practical use of space.  Dan had no interest in flash or packaging, only function.  And to serve as a corner store for us, he stocked as much as he could in the space he had.

Confession time.  When I was in high school on the yearbook staff they had in their files a "professional photo" of Dan's.  Probably they had an ad in the back of a yearbook one year.  I loved the photo, and it was unlikely that it would ever be used again, so somehow (the past is so fuzzy to me now) I ended up with it.  I used to occasionally look at it with my mother's magnifying glass, to remind me of the place.  Then technology came along, and eventually I had the capability for digitally scanning the image.  Scanning, then taking time to zoom in on parts of a picture, sometimes sharpening or otherwise modifying, can be great fun.  This picture is a perfect example, because it is jam-packed with details and memories.  I call the process photomining.  There are lots of pictures you could do this with - perhaps scan an old family photo and zoom in to get a good picture of the broach that your Aunt always used to wear, or to see if Grandma and Grandpa really were holding hands in that crowd. 

Personally, I use iPhoto for my photomining, and I can show you some examples of how this really takes me back, right back into the store that I had been in so many times as a kid.

(keep in mind that this was a professional photograph, so I had good resolution to begin with, which certainly helps when you are creating a digital image from an old photo for exploring)

So here it is - welcome to Dan's.  Time to start looking around.

This part of the picture shows the boxes of candy on Dan's left, and the shelf below, which held cleaning products such as Lifebuoy soap and spray starch.  You could get paper sheets of candy buttons, licorice rope twists, twizzlers, and small boxes of salt-covered pumpkin seeds. 

The ice cream sign lists more than 25 different kinds of ice cream - they were all behind the counter in a freezer. 

Below the ice cream flavors, the shelves are packed with cigars such as Dutch Masters and Phillies Blunts, Tips, and Cheeroots.  There are 39 cent pens, and candy bars below the smokes, and candy bars - Mounds, Almond Joys, Good & Plenties, Fifth Avenue bars and Baby Ruth's! I'd forgotten what some of the old packaging looked like!

Dan kept a close eye on the cigarettes.  It wasn't until I started photomining that I realized he sold Mrs. Paul's fish sticks!  I wish we'd known.

The ability to work with a digital version of an old photograph can really open up some opportunities.  The more complicated the better!

© 2012 John Allison

The Collector

As a kid, I collected things.  Of course, Philadelphia was the best possible place to be a kid collector.  Lots of kids across the country collected coins "back then", but we had The Mint - the ultimate coin shopping store. My Uncle Charlie turned me on to coin collecting when he gave me some partially filled "books" of pennies.  He had one book with spots for all of the indian head pennies in it, and the flying eagle pennies that were used a few years before the indian heads came out.  It was probably half full.  What a great start to collecting!  My Uncle Herb introduced me to proof sets, which I would order, and still do, from the mint every year. 

Lots of kids collected stamps.  We probably all started by just being excited to get as many stamps as we could.  My Aunt Helen would always send me an envelope of stamps she'd pulled off of a summer's worth of postcards that she'd gotten from friends who were traveling around the world.  I think most of my friends decided to focus on US stamps, since the entire world made too many to keep track of.  I also collected stamps from the UN - again a place that was just a train ride away - where we would occasionally go stamp shopping.  I thought one of the best Philly perks for young stamp collectors was the Philatelic counter at Wanamakers.  You could buy nice albums there, get new pages every year, and the guy behind the counter actually talked to kids.   (For the record, stamps are things that you would lick and put onto a letter.  The US doesn't make stamps any more as far as I'm concerned.)

I collected cards.  It seems like baseball cards were probably first to appear, followed by football cards.  Then there was a card explosion!  Too many to keep track of!  I have cards dating back to the 1950's that were probably worth something at one time, but that time has come and gone.  Good thing.  I remember having the Micky Mantle card, the Roger Marris card, all the greats of the time, and I also remember trading them all away (for Phillies cards, of course!  It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

I'll share with you some of the bubble gum cards/trading cards that I used to collect and of course still have.  Again, there was no better place to collect than in Philadelphia.  Fleer, the company who made a number of sports and non-sports trading cards, was headquartered in Philadelphia, as was Bowman Gum, who made cards through 1956 before selling out to The Topps Company.  Topps did have a plant in Dureya, PA (near Scranton), with headquarters in Manhattan.  To give you some idea of why the Philadelphia area was a great place for a kid to grow up - when the Beatles became hot, Topps put out several sets of Beatles cards.  There were three black and white series (each containing about 60 cards), and a color series (64) cards, which all came out in 1964.  I remember this well because I went to visit a school mate, Alan, one day, and his mother, who apparently worked for Topps, gave me a complete set of color Beatles cards!  A complete set!  She just handed them to me like they weren't the coolest things in the entire world.  Life for a kid collector in Philadelphia was excellent!

Here are some cards representative of those in my collection:

Fronts and backs of some of my 1961 Topps Baseball Cards
I traded away everything except for Phillies Cards!

The top card is from the First Topps Beatles Series, card number 44.
The second is from the color series, card number 28.
The third is from a series devoted to James Bond movies.

The backs of the three cards shown above are shown here
Early Beatle Cards just had numbers on the back
Color Beatles cards had fun information

A football card from 1962
A "Space Card"
A card from the series on the Civil War

The backs of these cards
All the stats you'd want on a football team
Space facts - sorry, it was glued into a book!
Information on the backs of all of the civil war
cards were like little newspaper headlines

Spook Stories had photos from movies

and TV shows (with joke captions)

A set of cards was dedicate to one TV show,

the Outer Limits

There were even cards dedicated to

Gomer Pyle

mostly with scenes from the TV show

Gomer Pyle USMC

Card backs

Some had jokes

Some had information on the

front picture

Some had dialog to go with

the still

There was no shortage of great card series to collect, and this trend continues today.  However, it was a special time in the 60's when card manufacturers first ventured beyond sports cards.  And it happened right here in Philadelphia, of course.

© 2012 John Allison
Note Added:  I can't believe that I didn't comment on how collecting changed my life!  Let me do that here:

I was very, very lucky because early in life I learned to pay attention to the things around me and to try and integrate new facts into how I thought about how the world worked.  Honestly!

It all goes back to collecting stamps, probably.  Some stamps were just, to me, too cool, but to collect them, you need to look at them, read them, get them in your head, so you can explain which one you might want next.  You want to look at them.  Little works of art they were.

More and more it started happening.  "What is the name of the queen who sent Columbus on his exploration?"  a teacher asked.  Well a set of stamps from 1892, the Columbian Exposition stamps,  had a $1 stamp showing Queen Isabella "pledging her jewels" it said.   From stamps, I knew something!  It felt good, and it happened over and over.

My personal favorite of US stamps was the Project Mercury stamp - a space capsule over the earth - a 4 cent stamp printed in 1963.  When a question came up in science about space travel, I knew the date.  I knew the project name.  I had information.  Others didn't.  Suddenly it felt like I wasn't so dumb anymore.

I was interviewing to be an assistant professor at MSU and someone asked me if I understood what it meant to be at a land grant college.  I hadn't touched my stamps for years but I remembered a green 3 cent stamp from 1955 celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the first land grant colleges - Michigan State and Penn State.  I could make an intelligent comment.  I knew dates and places.  It was because of all the hours I spent with my collections, enjoying them.

Aunt and uncles (and sometimes their friends) occasionally would bring coins back for me from vacations overseas.  The coins from England were confusing but heavy and cool.  They started out with a system of shillings, soverigns, and guineas.  In 1971 they introduced the new pence (100 new pence = 1 pound).  I read about it all in a coin magazine (being a good little nerd), and I had some new and some old.

I actually had the opportunity to travel to England a few times.  When I was there, many new and old coins were in circulation, which really confused tourists.  I understood, so nobody in my group would buy anything without consulting with me.  I liked it.  

I've also been able to answer questions about where money was minted because I had spent so much time looking at US coins with mint marks  (no mark for Philadelphia, D for Denver, S for San Francisco (SF?) and CC for Carson City).

So I had a very special context in approaching college.  Some classes were more relevant than others, but I got used to listening,  retaining, trying to remember.  I took lots of notes, read through them at the end of the day, and knew stuff.  Preparing for tests wasn't so hard.  It felt good.  Knowing facts felt good, and I had many free opportunities to learn things through my collections.  I still haven't used any of the information in my brain that I learned from my Gomer Pyle USMC cards, but you just never know!  My time will come.

© 2012 John Allison

My Aunt Was Her Cat/Meet the Winsbergs

Chapter 1.  Today I Got the Call

Aunt Helen died today, at age 104, and managed to get through an entire century, only getting arrested once.  The oldest child of a family of 10, she survived her husband, my Uncle, Haskel by 24 years.  She missed him every day.  The matriarch of the family, she spent much of her life keeping her nine brothers and sisters and their billions of children and grandchildren together and in contact with each other.  Since I was the only child of her baby sister, I came into their lives when my other cousins were married grown-ups, and when Helen and Haskel were living comfortably, which may be why they took me on as their project.  They loved me enough to make sure I knew about ways of life other than what my parents could show me.  I had many good experiences with my Aunt and Uncle, probably moreso than had most of my cousins, so I felt both obligated and awkward as I began to prepare a few comments for presentation at the upcoming funeral.

Chapter 2.  6 Days Later - the Wrap-up

I'm 56 and was the youngest to walk through the Chapel door.  Of course, she had, many years ago, selected her funeral home - an establishment that had been in business in Philadelphia since 1878.  I came, I saw, I spoke, but personally was not impressed with my work.  I'd lost two people who taught me important things.  If these "things" were so important I should be able to define them.  The shaky, small crowd complemented me on my words¹, but everything I said, or decided not to say, was trite, unoriginal, and unimaginative. 

The funeral was largely unsatisfying - the overwhelming grief² so common to funerals was not there.  Helen had been in a nursing home for almost a decade, and had micro-died every day for years, losing her hearing, her sight, her memory, and just about everything that made her her.  I wished she had died 20 years earlier; mourners would have felt much more in the moment, not so detached from the grey-haired body with the superglued lips that laid in the this room with us.  I also wished she had died 20 years earlier because it was her wish as well.  

When the pastor, "the Episcopal pastor"³, asked if anyone would like to say a few words about Helen, I inexplicably was silent, with notes in my pocket, but since there was no line forming I eventually stepped forward.  I told them I was going to be selfish and talk about what Aunt Helen and Uncle Haskel had done for me - showing me a world that I never would have seen without them.

As a Philly kid, I got to go to Rockefeller Center at Christmas, with Aunt Helen.  She and I took the train to Queens, to the 1964 New York World's Fair.  I had my first slice of New York cheesecake⁴ in a restaurant⁵ with her. I was rubbing elbows with royalty, it seemed, when we climbed one of the elaborate, curved staircases to the balcony in the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia in September of 1963 to see My Fair Lady⁶. After the show, we ate at the Kite and Key Lounge in the Benjamin Franklin Hotel at 9th and Chestnut⁷.  She ordered for me a real steak, rare. She said, "trust me".  I liked it.  She explained that my mother wasn't the best cook, but that I should consider occasionally "buying a nice cut of meat and warming it myself".  While my parents took me to see Santa, somewhere, every Christmas season, Aunt Helen took me one year to see SANTA at Wanamakers in Philadelphia, and I got a picture taken too. At the end of the Thanksgiving Day parade, the last float carried SANTA, and he climbed a firetruck ladder up into a Wanamaker's window, so I knew he was the real deal.  He didn't have food in his beard or anything. 

I remember the day that my family got the keys to our first house - remember sitting on the steps of the empty place getting ready to house clean.  My Aunt was sitting there with us.  She was always there, for us, and for me.

Both my Aunt and Uncle were amazing people.  When Aunt Helen walked into a room, everything stopped.  When Uncle Haskel walked into a room, no one noticed, but they all knew him by the time he left.  They were honestly special, not just special to me - on an absolute scale.  I feel obligated to document the evidence justifying this overused label, special.  They earned the right to have their "work" summarized, so after the family moved to a nondescript restaurant for a nondescript post-burial meal (alcohol, soup, alcohol, salad, chicken/veal parm/crab cake, alcohol, desert, coffee/tea) and I was hugged one last time by my many aging cousins, promising to keep in better touch, I drove home to start my work on the challenge of extracting, from my memories, their message for me.

Chapter 3.  I write

Learned concept #1:  Life can go your way if you have the strength, fortitude and persistence to insist on it.

During the week, particularly in the summer, when I was little⁸, Aunt Helen would often visit my mother and I, when my Dad was at work.  To do this, she would walk about a mile to catch the #11 trolley, ride it to it's end, then walk⁹ another mile, uphill¹⁰, to get to our house.  She was young at the time, only around 60.  She'd always arrive at lunchtime, carrying two shopping bags.  Packmule.  One would have lunch in it, usually a casserole that she made, or a Cornish hen that she bought hot at the Reading Terminal from the Amish, and there would always be a dress or curtain or sheets - something she claimed she didn't want anymore, so my mother could have.  Usually, the price tags were in the bag, lovingly but hastily removed during the trolley ride, because they were new.¹¹  She knew that, if she had asked, we wouldn't let her bring lunch every time.  We weren't indigent.  But the food appeared so we had to eat it.  My mother didn't need Aunt Helen to buy her something new every visit, but they had money and it was all carefully planned.  She dragged that new dress for miles - we couldn't expect her to drag it all the way back, then return it to the store.  She knew how she wanted life to go and made it happen.

Her biggest project concerning persistence was the man she married, the man she loved, the man the family shunned.  I'd long been haunted by a photo taken at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary; it was of the "men", sons and husbands, of the family.  Off to one side stood my Uncle Haskel, all 5'2" of him. How could an entire family decide to be so mean to someone so important to Aunt Helen?  If I were they, I would have told everyone to go to hell, but this was Helen's family and she would have her way. Many of Helen's brothers and sisters went through periods of hard times, since probably none of them had ever had the luxury of completing high school, so jobs could come and go¹². Haskel would always step up and loan them some money¹³ or help in some way.  He faced distain with grace.  He made the phrase "turn the other cheek", that I learned in Sunday School, real to me. I watched the family eventually warm up to him, and after too many years, he became a part of the family. Aunt Helen would not have rested until life relented, to go her way.

My favorite story of Aunt Helen's strength and persistence is one I cannot document, but was told the story from my mother.  Aunt Helen had a police record.  For years, she would do volunteer work to help elderly voters get to polling places.  It was important work to her, and when an old woman didn't have the strength to pull down the lever¹⁴, Aunt Helen responded to a request for help, and was promptly admonished for stepping into the voting booth.  I'm sure she politely explained that she did what she had to do, end of story.  Such interventions were not permitted.  Still, voting was a sacred right¹⁵, so when she was again asked for help, again by a senior citizen frustrated because she didn't have the strength required, Helen provided assistance and was arrested.  The police were not amused.  I was very proud, and a bit surprised that my parents were as well.

Learned concept #2:  Every person on the planet is potentially tomorrow's friend, and you should always be ready to begin that relationship¹⁶.

I'm fading back into Tritesville. She was impressive in her people skills, and had friends in more circles than I ever could appreciate.  When I was a teenager, my friends and I would always go into town¹⁷ at Christmas to shop and see the sites/lights, which of course always included walking an extra 12 blocks each way to visit with Aunt Helen.  Usually teenagers shun adults, but my friends loved her, and she loved them.  She had radar¹⁸, so whenever we'd knock, the fire would be crackling, plates and lead glass dishes filled with cookies populated the room, and my friends would melt into the furniture.  Within seconds, lunch would appear.  She must have made sandwiches every day and kept them in the fridge, just in case.  Then, of course, they couldn't leave without presents.  Every Christmas, she'd buy and wrap dozens of small gifts, for nobody in particular - half with a small M on the bottom, half with a small F, kept in her closet, ready for anyone who showed up.

At their house, people always showed up.  Her house was a hangout for all the neighbors, who would bring her things, borrow things, check out when they went to work, and check in when they got home.  I met doctors, lawyers, ministers, and even homeless people there.  All were drawn to her door because they were addicted to watching her face light up when they walked in.  And walk in they did.  Even the mailman would just open the door and set the mail on the table.  Then there was the cat.  Matisse was her treasure, her companion, and her protector after Haskel died, but the cat always seemed one of the little impurrfections¹⁹ in the life of Aunt Helen.  Maybe she wanted a cat but didn't have the time to do the pet-thing right, I don't know.  But every morning she'd just let him loose in center city Philadelphia.  In a full sprint, he'd run out the back door into their tiny back yard, fly over the brick wall, then over the next brick wall, down through the yards, and off he'd go.  He'd visit the Church, visit his friends like the firemen, who always talked about him, seek out friends unknown to us, and he'd wander around Franklin's grave.  Sometimes when we went downtown to visit, we'd see him darting in and out of Philadelphia traffic.  Seemed crazy.  He was her second cat²⁰. I'd have expected her to keep him home.  Every day at dusk, he was required to return.  If he didn't, she'd go out looking for him, and while there was the occasional all-nighter, he'd usually be pawing and meowing at the front door as the sun was setting, or a neighbor would just open the door and in would walk the man of the house, home from work, Matisse.

Learned concept #3:  If you're going to do something, do something great - but balance it out by doing things small.

I don't know enough details, but from her obit I learned that she was an important participant/organizer in the early days of the Philadelphia Flower Show.  This was big, but no surprise, since while she never graduated high school, she took a number of college courses in horticulture. 

Going small, I have no doubt that she passed homeless people every day, and I'm sure she wouldn't pass without giving them some money, or perhaps a sandwich, or even a casserole!  It was something small, but she faced all things with her head raised high, no turning away²¹.  Then, she organized her friends and Haskel's friends and raised enough money to start a soup kitchen that is still in operation today, The Coffee Cup.  She had the capability of doing something small, (like making sure my favorite caramels were always in the house for whenever I visited), but could envision big things and take them on just as easily.

Correlate concept #3A:  Know that, if you try to do something good and fail, good will still result.

It's probably time to introduce my Uncle Haskel.  They were at a time in their lives when they liked an occasional kid around the house, and I fit the bill, so that worked out fine.  I think he saw a place for himself in my life and enjoyed serving in that role.  He taught me urban exploring - since one of his jobs was to appraise houses, often empty.  He'd occasionally invite me to join him on weekends, roaming through beautiful 3 and 4-story Philadelphia row homes, showing me the difference between a good and bad house²².  I believe that he wanted me to be well rounded, and tried to stimulate my interest in sports.  One weekend he took me to see Penn play football in the stadium that they still use, Franklin Field.  He was the only person I knew who went to college, and he graduated from Penn.  Then, on Sunday, he took me back to Franklin Field where we watched The Eagles play²³.  I was young, but old enough to know I had just done something very special! 

Aunt Helen and Uncle Haskel liked to golf, and were members of a country club, of course.  When I was eight they bought me my first and last set of golf clubs and I competed (i.e., was somehow registered) in a country club golf competition.  I shot a 64.  Fortunately, for my age group, we didn't have to play a second hole.  I guess they must have been a little disappointed that I didn't go on to become a golfer, but it was quite an experience for me.  I don't think anyone at my school had ever been to a country club.  I was learning that there were lifestyles other than those of my parents.  It was good, plus I got a trophy with my name on it and everything²⁴!

Learned Concept #4:  Be smart.  Maybe you aren't smart, but you should be.  It just takes work.  Be smart.

With 20 aunts and uncles, I was a lucky kid - not so lucky as I grew older and had to watch all of them die - but, still, a lucky kid.  Many of the family would congregate on weekends at my grandparent's house.  If it was an evening congregation, the guys would play cards, often, and the girls would congregate in the kitchen.  Sometimes Uncle Haskel would sit in an overstuffed chair at the foot of the stairs in the living room and I'd sit on a step, and we'd talk.  I remember when he learned that I was taking algebra, probably in 7th grade.  He started drilling me.  I was pretty good at math, so I was doing OK.  He gave me a relatively simple problem, like 4x+3=43, what is x?  I told him x = 10.  He said I was wrong.  I did it again.  Nope.  I proved it to him.  Nope.  I proved it to him a second way.  Nope.  Every time he said "nope" he did smile, so I couldn't tell if he was playing with me or enjoying my frustration, but this was very important. I was drifting in junior high, and after that night, I became more exact, prepared better, and eventually graduated surprisingly high up in the class ranking.  It was an interesting little conversation, that no one else knew we were having, and that no one else there could have had with me.  You may not think of an algebra challenge as an intimate, life-changing moment, but it was for me.²⁵

Speaking of being smart, it was in the basement of my grandparents home where Uncle Haskel and I had a very intimate moment - one that changed my life.  This guy read three or four books a week for most of his adult life.  He had no place to keep them so many people had stashes of his books in their basements.  One time he took me downstairs, grabbed an Acme supermarket bag, and started to pick out books that he wanted me to have.  It wasn't the last time.  My father and I built bookcases in my bedroom just to hold all of the books I received.  He would have a few words to say about each one.  He read lots of books about traveling to exotic places, a popular topic in the 1940's and 50's.  He gave me books from his college days, some science books²⁶, and some books that he read for pleasure that were from a book club he had joined during college.  He was investing in me.  I opened one book because it had paper sticking out.  He'd get lots of books after reading reviews about them, and would always save the review and keep it with the book.  As I opened the front cover to see how old the newspaper clipping was, I saw something else.  A name was in the book that my Uncle Haskel, Haskel Winslow, was giving me.  It said Haskel Winsberg.  I literally froze.  Who did this book really belong to?  Why were their names so similar?  Surely he didn't have another name.  Fortunately, he saw what I had discovered, and calmly explained it to me.  He said, "That used to be me.  You see, I'm Jewish, and when I graduated from college people didn't want to work with businessmen who were Jews²⁷, so I changed my name from Winsberg to Winslow."  It was the saddest story I'd ever heard, but it somehow put everything into perspective.  Is that why the family disliked him?  It made me dislike them.  It made me dislike my country just a little bit more.  I never would have known that things like this ever could have happened here, but this is why it's important to spend time with older people, to learn about how different life used to be, not so long ago.  Some people hated you for your name.  Even "family".  Inconceivable.  I think I grew up a lot that day. I wished I just could have remained a young innocent, a virgin to the realities of a world such as this, but it was not to be, and this is something that I needed to recognize.  It should have been a great day, to be carrying home a bag of beautiful books, but I could not celebrate.  Some of them had a signature in them that would always remind me of the look of suppressed hurt on his face, and that for some reason, the family upstairs playing cards or making food for the men playing cards and laughing, should have instead been explaining themselves to me.  I wasn't happy with them, even though he tried to minimize the facts.

Learned Concept #5:  Relax and don't be afraid to laugh at yourself. 

They taught me how the other half lived, they spent time with me, they took me places and introduced me to people and things that helped me grow.  While Aunt Helen never would have taken on this task, Uncle Haskel, with a gusto that demonstrated the definition of glee, took on the job of making sure I appreciated a sense of humor, especially the need to be able to laugh at yourself.²⁸ This was from a guy who was 5'2" short and bald, so he must have been well-trained. 

For an old guy, he was very plugged into what might just strike a nerve for certain age groups. They would often visit on weekends.  One day when he was in the "little boy's room" at our house, all conversation in the living room stopped after we heard three loud bangs from upstairs.  When he came back down we asked if he was OK - said he hit his head on the doorjam³⁰.  Three times? "I was really in a hurry - had to go³⁰."  After they left, I found that he had hammered a nail into my bedroom door, and there was a small frame hanging on it.  He had taken a bad picture of himself in one of those booths where you get three photos on a strip.  He glued one onto the center of a piece of cardboard in the frame, one where he wasn't smiling, and wrote "With love from your loving Uncle Haskel, XXXOOO" with his fountain pen - just what a growing boy would want his friends to see.³¹

I still have in my files a letter that I, again still a kid³², had received one day in the mail.  It was a few days before my Aunt and Uncle were scheduled to come over for dinner and cake for my father's birthday.  A letter in an official envelope on office stationary is very cool for a kid.  Out fell a check, also very cool since I'd never seen one up close before, much less one issued to me.  The letter said:

"Dear Young Mr. Allison,

It has come to my attention that my wife and I will be reluctantly attending dinner at your parents' home in a few days.  I am writing to request that you ensure that you will not be present, just so the visit can be an enjoyable one for us.  Enclosed is payment that should cover your costs.  We appreciate your cooperation.

Best wishes,

Haskel E. Winslow"

Every joke was original, and had a theme - training me.

I can now finish the story of that great football weekend we had.  When we sat down on the cold bench in Franklin Field, he acknowledged the gentlemen who flanked us.  He introduced me as "my nephew, but just through marriage, no blood relationship at all," followed by his he-he-he laugh, clearly proud of himself.  I was a straight man in training. 

Years later, I married Cathie who came with a boy and girl child.  Often I would introduce Jason in the same way.  You should never lose track of good material.

Not to overdo the humor theme, but just to document what this man would do to a young boy . . . when we were young, every year all of our parents would pay for another set of school pictures.  We'd always send one to my Aunt and Uncle.  He would always lovingly frame it.  Then, whenever we'd visit he would gleefully display it on the toilet.  He'd drown me with kindness and lots of Pepsi, to ensure I'd have to pee soon, then when I'd return from the bathroom, he'd say, the same thing every time.  "Isn't this your birthday?  I wanted to give you a birthday potty!"  Not his best, probably stolen from one of Aunt Helen's Readers Digests, but it seemed to make him happy, and it made me learn to smile when picked on.  Later, in Senior High, I recall one of the jocks/jerks taking the time to verbally attack me.  There wasn't any reason, except showing off to his friends.  I'm sure most would have gotten very upset, but I just smiled.  I think he called me a bunch of stupid names ("Hey you little asshole, etc."), I smiled, and told him I was a little asshole because I thought he needed some company, so he wouldn't feel so alone.  He probably could have pounded me into the ground, but instead chose not to, even though his buddies were "ooooo"-ing my comments.  I guess I caught him off guard.  Or perhaps he detected my super-hero like powers, with the S on my chest (for Straight Man).

Learned Concept #6:  Live on Mars.

Their last home was #2 Loxley Court at 4th and Arch St. in Philadelphia, within a block of the Mint, a block of Betsy Ross' House, and only a few blocks from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  They had a wonderful historic courtyard³³.  History reports that, when Ben Franklin was running with his kite to keep an appointment with a thunderstorm, he stopped by the home of his friend the carpenter, Loxley's house, and borrowed his key.  Loxley lived at #2, of course.  The place simmered in history.  You can still go there, and see a plaque and small monument in honor of Uncle Haskel, erected by those who lived in the court when we lost him.  He had that kind of impact on his neighbors.  But my favorite place, the place I still have dreams about, was an apartment building on 38th street, perhaps their first home.  They had a studio apartment with a trundle bed, and when I visited on an occasional weekend, I'd sleep under the kitchen table with their dog, my friend, Gus.  The three story stone apartment building was like some kind of enchanted urban island.  For a few years, my Great Aunt Florrie lived upstairs, put there by Aunt Helen so she could take care of Florrie.  I probably would never have met my great aunt if it weren't for this arrangement.  She was about 4'2" tall, bug-eyed, just some skin draped over a skeleton - a copy of her sister, my grandmother, only taller.  It was great to meet the oldest living member of the family.  Once, when I was asked to take a hot meal up to her, she was giddy with excitement as she read aloud a story from the Evening Bulletin to me.  She was fascinated - she no longer needed her glasses that she'd worn for 70 years.  Suddenly she could see again - I was witnessing a miracle.  A week later she died.  We decided that corrected vision is one of many possible little gifts you may get in the week before you're scheduled to go.

There were three apartments on their floor.  The largest one was inhabited by some number of Penn students, who Aunt Helen fed often.  This is where it gets . . . different.  She introduced me to one of the students and simply said, "show him".  He guided me into his "pad".  In their living area they had a record player and I remember the album cover on the floor, because it showed a naked woman discretely covered by an acoustic guitar. The place smelled and was a mess, which probably shouldn't have been unexpected.  They had filled their bathtub with dirt and they had tomatoes growing in there.  Looking back, all I can report is that they said they had tomatoes growing in there.³⁴  Leaving the pot(ty) room, he pointed to a closed door and said, "are you ready?"  "???," I replied.  He opened the door and we walked in; he dramatically paced himself in turning on the light switch.  The overhead light was a spotlight, which only illuminated the middle of the room, where, sitting on a perch, was a South American parrot.  Its head was bigger than mine, and, from beak to tailfeathers, was longer than I was tall.  Part of the beauty of this thing was that it was pure white.  It wasn't behind a screen or glass or in a cage, but the bird and I were standing there looking at each other.  I was on another planet.  It was like being in a movie³⁵ and it was their world - Helen and Haskel's world - where simply by existing, you were accepted.

Chapter 4.  Lets see where we are:

- Life can go your way if you have the strength and fortitude and persistence to insist on it.

- Every person on the planet is potentially tomorrow's friend, and you should always be ready to begin that relationship.

- If you're going to do something, do something great - but balance it out by doing things small.

             - Know that, if you try to do something good and fail, good will still result.

- Be smart.  Maybe you aren't smart, but you should be.  It just takes work.  Be smart.

- Relax and don't be afraid to laugh at yourself.

- Live on Mars.

It seemed like a decent list but it didn't do them justice. Such interesting lives deserved a more insightful summary.  What's the biggest big picture? 

My mind again drifted to Matisse - almost the single inconsistency in their lives.  How do I fold Matisse the cat into the big picture? Pets are just animals?  Is that the learned concept?  Seems pretty cold.  I remembered Uncle Haskel once telling me that, whenever you have a question about anything, the answer is always right there in front of you - if you don't get it, you just aren't listening. 

Chapter 5.  One Click After Midnight

I awoke shortly after midnight.  I had just had a dream, and actually remembered part of it.  It was about Aunt Helen, which should seem natural considering how much she'd been in my thoughts, but that kind of memory mapping into dreams never happens to me.  I remember, in the dream, Helen³⁵ in her little back yard, giving me a tour like I was seeing it for the first time.  For such a tiny space, it served many purposes.  It was home for the very un-historic air conditioner that could not have been exposed from anywhere on the front of this historic site.  She showed me the turtles who enjoyed living in the gardens.  I knew one well since, on a ride to the shore (a.k.a., New Jersey) one summer, I made my parents stop the car when we passed a turtle on the road.  I invited him into the car, and fed him lettuce until I could put him in the care of Aunt Helen.  In the dream she introduced me to her three small goldfish, who lived in the "pond", which was a modified marble bathroom sink top in the ground.  As she talked, I remembered her repeatedly looking up to the top of the garden wall.  What was the attraction there?  Then it hit me and I got up to write this, my best version of the big picture.  I had been trying to understand if Matisse fit into the big picture.  I now realized that, in this story, the two are one. 

Matisse is Aunt Helen.

There were three responsible for my training, and they were all trying to show me, through their lives, the same thing.  The big picture³⁶:

In life, you need to understand the rules and try to live by them, but spend as much time as you can doing what you enjoy, living each day with intention.  Look forward to each sunrise - sprint out the door, jump over the fence, no matter how high it is, and feel alive!  Sometimes you need to run between the cars - it feels good, and if it's wrong, then let them try to catch you!  Be sure you make time for friends, and for the people who love you.  When they trust you enough to let you run free, make sure you guard over them as best you can, and bring them an occasional mouse to show that you appreciate their love.

_________________________________________

Post-ending ending:  (This is difficult to do because I am a storyteller, not an artist, so to end with anything from a serious writer can only create an unwanted contrast with what I have composed, but that's something I'll have to live with.)

If you have any questions about life, the answers are always in front of you, we just have to learn how to listen.  Since I was writing about my Uncle's books, I decided to go back and look through some of them again, to see when he was a Winsberg.  He gave me a 1917 copy of Poor People by Dostoyevsky (his first novel, written when he was 24) which was signed by Haskel and dated 1/21/26.  It's soft leather cover always made me envious of the past.  I was surprised to find written within, by Uncle Haskel, a quote that he found worthy and relevant to him; it could represent the personal, desperate dream of a frustrated optimist, so I will leave you with what he wrote:

"Civilization is refinement of spirit, respect of one's neighbor, tolerance of foreign opinion, courtesy of manner. 

Four Horsemen, Ibanez"

some (amazing) photos of a young Aunt Helen
at one of her birthday parties

A present from Uncle Haskel

Uncle Haskel in his tiny little back yard at #2 Loxley Court.
We drove the lawn mower down to Philadelphia for him to use.
(My father's bottom on the left)

Official Mail from Uncle Haskel
asking me not to show up to dinner
I was 12

Newspaper Article from the Bulletin on Loxley Court

A Young and Beautiful Helen

One of the family stories is that Helen was in a Beauty Pageant in
Atlantic City when she was young (before there was officially
a Miss America Pageant)

My girlfriend at her 100th birthday

____________________________________________________

Footnotes:

1.  probably instead more an indication of gratitude, so they wouldn't have to try and develop public speaking skills with tears in their eyes

2.  that she had earned

3.  as was explained to me by a cousin

4.  real, not the Jello recipe

5.  That stuff's expensive!

6.  No, I didn't get to see Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle, but Gaylea Byrne was just fine for me!

7.  a prediction of things to come

8.  One could say "when I was a kid", or "when I was a child", but the correct designation in my family is "when I was little".  Undoubtedly it was a carefully selected term to make clear that size and maturity are not necessarily coupled.

9.  honestly

10.  seriously

11.  There is no doubt that many happy people got off the number 11 that day, as the smell of that casserole triumphed over the more common smell of urine.

12.  Certainly this was the case with my family. While my father worked for years at Westinghouse, I can remember multiple strikes by the Union that lasted for many months.

13.  Haskel was a very good businessman, and when he died, everything was in place to allow Aunt Helen to continue to live, in the lifestyle she required, for decades.

14.  At the time, the term "hanging Chad" had other meanings, usually related to that pain-in-the-butt Chad.

15.  She was 16 when Congress passed the 19th Ammendment, so she had a unique perspective on the topic.

16.  No, I didn't copy this from a Hallmark card.

17.  New York was "the city"; Philadelphia was "town" or "downtown".

18.  probably my mother

19.  sorry

20.  Her first cat became a truck's splat.

21.  Pink Floyd, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, Columbia Records, 1987

22.  Urban exploring may be what I enjoy doing most in life.

23.  before they had a stadium of their own

24.  Want to see it?

25.  Thanks, Uncle Haskel.

26.  including Mammalian Anatomy with special reference to The Cat, - ugh

27.  whatever Jew really meant, I didn't get it

28.  It all felt very Pink Panther, he as a verbal Cato²⁹ to my Inspector Clouseau.

29.  Fong - Cato's last name was Fong

30.  rimshot

31.  Don't underestimate what was involved in pulling this off.  He depended on my Mother putting all of the coats on my bed, as she always did for company, including his coat, which must have weighed 30 pounds, since it carried a frame, a nail, and a hammer.  Also, there is the time spent preparing this little gem.  That's love, my friends.

32.  little

33.  that place where my friends loved to go

34.  I've since rethought this, and Aunt Horticulture must have known what was really going on.

35.  in color

36.  If it's too Hallmark, I don't need to know.  But thanks for offering.

© 2012 John Allison