Ten Degrees Past Hell

Today’s post was inspired by The Daily Prompt’s one word prompt: Youth.

 

Our air conditioner unit is on the fritz. It tried to give up the ghost a few nights ago and the temperature went from a comfortable 72 degrees to a rather warm 82 degrees rather quickly. My daughter wondered aloud how people survived prior to the invention of central air and window units.

I chuckled as I thought back to my own childhood. It could be 95 degrees outside with the heat index making it feel like 112, and as kids it didn’t seem to bother us one bit. We lived a an old row house in Brooklyn, when I was a kid. We didn’t have central air, a window unit (until later), or cable or an Atari game system, like some of our friends. During the summer, mom didn’t allow us to stay in the house all day. While she was at work we had to do school work. Actually, I had to do school work. My older brother got away with murder! I had math workbooks and penmanship workbooks. I hated both! Once my mother got home, IF she was satisfied with my work, I’d be allowed to go outside to play. Sitting in front of the TV was not an option. We ran from the backyard to the front. My brother was allowed to go over to his friend’s house or play with them on the street, as he was older and deemed capable of handling himself if trouble were to arise. Summers in Brooklyn had a smell. On the hottest days you would catch a whiff of tar as it softened under the blazing sun coming off the streets and some of the rooftops, exhaust fumes from the busses and cars, and depending on which way the warm breeze blew, you might even catch the fragrance of stale urine and trash that lingered around the El just one block away.

Third Avenue Elevated Line, Bronx, NY by Jack E. Boucher

You could see the heat, rising in waves, off the pavement and parked cars. It’s amazing how much heat the roads, sidewalks and concrete structures hold. Kids used to open the fire hydrants and play in the water to cool down. My mom wouldn’t let us get in on the fun when the hydrant was open. We lived on a one way street. Cars were always parked bumper to bumper on either side, but the boys (and even some of the men) would get out in the middle of the block and play stickball, the city variation of baseball. It didn’t matter that Highland Park sat at the end of our street. They could have had a proper game of baseball/stickball in a more open space. But no, right there in the middle of the block was where the games happened.  I don’t recall any cars being damaged or the windows on anybody’s house being broken during these games.

Boys playing stick ball, Havana, Cuba, 1999 by Cliff

 

 

If we weren’t outside in the sweltering city heat, we were hanging out in the basement where it was cool. On the main floor of our house, my dad had the windows at the front of house open, and an olive green metal box fan in one of the windows in the dining room at the back of the house. The back door in the kitchen was usually open, too, allowing for more airflow. Knowing what I know now, it was probably still 80- or 90-something degrees inside, with the fan swirling the warm air around the house. Dad constantly warned me to stay away from the fan. He was afraid I would stick my finger between the slots and lose an appendage.  I liked to sit in front of it and make funny noises, and giggle as the fast moving metal blades would chop the sound of my voice up, making me sound like a robot. 

Olive Green appliances were all the rage in the late 70s and early 80s.

Older people don’t tolerate heat as well as kids, it seems, because the olive green box fan was soon replaced by a wood paneled window air conditioning unit from Sears. Windows were locked, doors to other rooms on the main floor were closed and blocked with draft socks in an effort to keep the cool air contained to the living room and dining room. (Side note: My mother made a draft sock that looked like an extra long dachshund. She named him, “Struggles.” He was accidentally kicked down the basement steps as my grandmother was heading to the basement to do laundry. Struggles slid down the side of the steps like a snake and scared THE CRAP out of my dear, sweet, grandmother. We both got a good laugh out of that moment!) Dad even installed and accordion-type room separator between the galley kitchen and the living room/dining room area. During the summer, the temperature in the kitchen seemed to always linger somewhere around 10 degrees past hell. The only relief was to open the back door and turn on the exhaust fan over stove, which brought the temperature down to a more comfortable 3 degrees past hell.

But somehow, we survived the heat. Our bodies acclimated to its environment. I don’t recall hearing about heat-stroke and dehydration until we moved out of NY, then again, I was very young. Someone else was responsible for worrying about such things. Thankfully, my A/C unit is displaying some “act right” about itself and my daughter and I won’t have to figure out how well our bodies (and attitudes) would acclimate to existing in 80 + degree inside temperatures plus humidity.

Time Travel

Today I took a trip, via Google Maps, to my hometown of Brooklyn, NY. I visit my old neighborhood often and “walk” the route I used to take to school each morning, the route to the library and the route to my aunt’s house. I try to recall the bus route to the school I went to for 1st through 3rd grades, but I guess a memory will only reach but so far. A lot has changed in 30+ years.

There used to a used car lot next to my house. I remember the guy who owned the place was pretty nasty. His car lot looked more like a junk yard. His cousin owned a small dealership across the street. He sold shiny new Lincolns, and had fancy red,white and blue tinsle strung between the light poles and fence around his lot. I doubt the cousin still owns that lot. The tinsle and Lincolns are gone, and have been replaced by a red, white and blue sign and used luxury vehicle. In place of the trashy used car lot, is a motel with very few windows next to my old house. It looks more like a warehouse than a place to stay while you visit your family in Brooklyn.

At the other end of the street is The L – the elevated train line. The street that the train line covered was dark and dirty looking, simply because sunlight was blocked by the platform and tracks. The steps leading to the platform always smelled like urine and seemed to have extra grunge around the steps. I took the train with my mother a few times when I was a little girl and hated the way the wooden platform shook and rattled as the train rolled in. I was able to look between the slats to the street below. I always afraid of falling through the splintered wood planks, and getting hit by a car before landing on the road below. Travelling by bus was much safer.

The memory that’s stuck in my mind is a trip my father and I took to the deli one afternoon. It sticks out in my mind because when our family moved to Delaware and people mentioned going to the deli to eat,  it confused me. The deli I visited as a kid was a place to buy cold cuts and meat. You didn’t dine in a deli! There were no sandwiches in the deli! If you wanted a hero (a submarine sandwich), and a bag of chips with a coke, you went to the pizza shop. If you wanted sliced ham and a side of brisket, you went to the deli.

The deli that we went to was my dad’s regular place to cheese and lunch meat. The guy behind the counter knew him well and greeted him enthusiastically, “Heeeeeeey there! How ya dooin’?! What can I for ya t’day?” My dad gave him a slightly less energetic, but no less enthusiastic, “Hey, how are ya,” and proceeded to order his lunch meat and cheese. The man behind the counter noticed me standing beside my father and asked me if I would like a piece of cheese. Of course, the answer was, ‘yes!’ I loved cheese!! What six-year-old didn’t? But I had to look to my father to get the nod of approval before whispering, “Yes, please.” He sliced a thick piece of American cheese and handed it to me before slicing my father’s order. As he and my father talked, I noticed the meat in the deli case. Cow’s feet, cow tongue (which had been stamped with blue ink, letting the buyer know the government inspected it and it was safe to eat), pig’s feet, rump roast, cube steak and other cuts of meat. One of the workers came from the refrigerated area in the back. I looked through the door and saw a whole half of a cow. Beef, before it was sectioned and cut up into the pieces that the butcher would wrap in crisp brown wax paper and hand to customers to prepare for their evening meals. It was then than the odor hit me – the cold aroma of death. The combined fragrance of pork and beef blood that dripped on the floor in that back area, the smell of both types of flesh, blended with the sweet smell of cheeses and other exotic meats in the deli case. I’ve never encountered that bouquet again. It didn’t traumatize me. I think my father thought it might have, because he never took me back.

The deli counter in the supermarkets I frequent today don’t feel as real (maybe ‘qualified’ is a better word) to me as that little deli in Brooklyn. They don’t smell like death. They fry chicken and sell potato salad, and cater. They sell pita chips. Maybe, by now, deli’s in New York do all of those things, too. It’s a great way to generate additional income, but it takes away from the charm of a good, old fashioned deli.

My trips via Google Maps feel something like time travelling. It reminds me how different our worlds can be within a two hour distance, as well as how much the world has changed in 30 years.

The Butcher’s Shop by Annibale Carrachi

 

Today’s Lesson: The Circle of Life

Mufasa: Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.
Simba: But, dad, don’t we eat the antelope?
Mufasa: Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass. And the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.

This conversation between father and son has rolled around in my brain for the last few weeks. Not quite sure why, but it’s there. Balance and connection. For reasons I cannot pin point, it made me think of my grandmother who passed away last August. I have recalled odd bits and pieces of conversations, things she said that made me laugh, things I said that made her laugh. For example, I used to tell her that I am her most favorite grandchild. She challenged me on that statement a few months before she passed,

“Are you sure you are the favorite?”
I responded with all confidence, “Yup!”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just told you, Mum. So, you can’t say you didn’t know I was the favorite!” She laughed and shook her head, but she didn’t tell me that I wasn’t the favorite. That was enough confirmation for me! The truth is, if she had a favorite grandchild, she kept it a carefully guarded secret.

A particular memory rose to the surface today as I listened to the audiobook, Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent. Todd Burpo described trying to persuade his 3-year-old son to drink the vile tasting beverage provided by the technician prior to the cat-scan being administered. In an instant, I was in the room with my grandmother as she was about to get her cat-scan. She was nervous about being in the machine and the noise it made. She didn’t want me to leave her. So as the rest of her body was guided into the tube, the tech left enough of her legs extended outside of the machine, so I could hold on to my grandmother’s leg, giving her a little comfort. I said something I cannot recall to make my grandmother laugh. She relaxed and before we knew it, the test was over. That happened roughly seventeen years ago. Today, I almost burst into tears thinking about it. I stopped the audio book and took a deep breath. There is no crying during work hours.

Yesterday, I shared with my mother and daughter how much my grandmother used to HATE when I watched Star Trek: Next Generation. I loved that show as a teenager! She would go into a rant as soon as she saw Lieutenant Worf’s rippled forehead appear on the screen! “Laaahhd a mercy!! How you watch dat hugly sumting so? Hits heeevilll,” she would declare in her Jamaican/British accent. And she did not stop fussing until I changed the channel to something more to her liking. That memory had me in stitches.

As my friends post stories about the loved ones that have passed, I think about the “great Circle of Life.” When loved ones pass away, even if we were not around them everyday, the lack of their “being” changes our landscape. They will visit our memories at the oddest of times. Whether you laugh or cry over the memories is not the important thing. Remembering is the important thing. As cliche as it sounds, they are still with us everywhere the light touches our lives and sometimes in the shadowy places where we should not venture, but still do occasionally. The memories keep us balanced; remind us of the living we have yet to do and that what we do, and say, and create shapes the landscape for the next generation.

So, today’s lesson is not so much of a lesson as it is something to ponder: How will your life contribute to the landscape?

http://movieclips.com/ZNpQL-the-lion-king-movie-everything-the-light-touches/0/70.867