In the Kitchen

When I was growing up, the homes on our block were fairly simple. We had a kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom and living room. There were no sun rooms, dens, powder rooms, TV rooms, or "great" rooms with glass-walled fireplaces. When I think of those days, I tend to picture myself in the kitchen. Until we got our first RCA 13" black and white television, the living room was usually reserved for company, so the kitchen is where we spent most of our time. It was where the family gathered to eat, play games, do homework or just talk. I have already written a little about our kitchen in "The Power of Formica". http://www.blogger.com/blogger but every once in a while, I see on image that takes me back to that place and time.

Because money was tight, Mom found ways to cut a corner when she could. Peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly came in glass jars that were slightly bowed at the bottom. After these were empty and washed out, they became our drinking glasses. They were perfectly functional and didn't cost a penny. If you broke one, you just ate more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches until the set of glasses was complete again. The earlier jars were plain, but as advertisers wised up, they began putting pictures of favorite cartoon characters on the jars so that kids would bug their parents to buy a particular brand. Interestingly enough, a set of 6 of these "retro" glasses are now being sold on eBay for $16.99. 

If you look in the average kitchen today you will see an array of pots designed for every possible cooking chore. My mother had a motley collection of pots and pans that may not have been fancy, but in them she cooked the most fabulous dinners. The one I remember best was a black, cast-iron frying pan that weighed as much as a small car. This pan was dear to me because in it Mom made the best bacon and eggs ever. She would cook the bacon first until it was crispy but not dry. Then she used some of the bacon grease to fry the eggs, perfect, sunny side up eggs that were brown around the edges with no white ick around the yokes. Wonder bread toast completed the meal all washed down with Maxwell House coffee. 

Breakfast was and still is my favorite meal of the day. I love cereal, maybe because cereal makers were sponsors for a lot of kids' TV shows back then. I would sit at the table with a big bowl of Cheerios or Wheaties. Into it I would slice a banana into exactly ten pieces (a quirk that persists to this day), pour in the milk out of a glass bottle, and diligently read whatever was on the back of the cereal box. At some point, cereal makers introduced smaller, single serving sizes of their different brands in a variety pack. The exciting feature of these little boxes was that you could make a slit down the perforated length of the box and pour the milk directly into the box...what a concept! No room for a banana though.

I can't imagine the number of hours I spent at our Formica and chrome kitchen table with the red and white checked oilskin tablecloth. It was always warm and cozy there, especially on winter mornings when the smell of coffee percolating in the old fashioned coffee pot wafted up the stairs and helped get us out of bed to start the day. It never occurred to me that the coffee wouldn't get put on the stove unless Mom got up to do it. My eggs never would have been made if she hadn't dragged out the black frying pan and cooked them. The Kellogg's Sugar Corn Pops would not have been on the shelf if Mom hadn't bought and put them there. The kitchen was her domain where she worked hard to nurture all of us. Thanks Fran for all you did.

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M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

While growing up in 1950s Brooklyn, if I ever admitted I was a big fan of The Mickey Mouse Club on TV, it would have meant a guaranteed ass kicking in the schoolyard. I really liked only one part of the show, a segment called "Spin and Marty". This is how the ad promo described it: "The most popular serial ever shown on the original Mickey Mouse Club was a low-key story about fourteen boys spending the summer on a ranch. The two central characters were an orphaned rich boy, and a cool, lower middle-class kid with no father. Their rocky path to friendship, and their interaction with the other boys, horses, and adults on the Triple R made a lasting impression on viewers."

Spin and Marty certainly made a lasting impression on me. The show aired in 1955 at which time I was 13 years old, about the same age as the boys on the show. Most of my heroes back then were cowboys, so the idea of boys my age living on a ranch, riding horses, and just having fun held strong appeal for me. At that age the only horse I had ever seen belonged to Steve the junk man who, in summer, became Steve the fruit and vegetable man. The horse who pulled his wagon should have been named Elmer because he was about one stumble away from the glue factory. But I digress. Every afternoon when the MM Club show was broadcast, I was at my post in front of our 13" black and white RCA television ready for my vicarious adventures with the boys on the ranch. 

The plot of the series centered around the conflict between Spin Evans, a popular, likable boy who is comfortable around horses, and Master Martin Markham, a recently orphaned rich boy with a chip on his shoulder who initially disdains life on the Triple R ranch and rebuffs offers of friendship from Spin and the other boys. Al, one of the kindly old ranch hands, takes Marty under his wing and teaches him the skills necessary to compete in the annual rodeo competition against the Triple R's rival, North Fork Ranch. Marty, who soon becomes an accomplished ranch hand and confident in his own achievements, is now ready to finally accept Spin's overtures of friendship, as all the boys meet for the last campfire of the season. 

The story hooked me good. The interplay and growing sense of competition between Spin and Marty, the alliances that grew up around each boy, and finally their coming together in friendship and uniting to defeat the North Fork boys at the rodeo were all themes with which any 13 year old boy could identify. Even in the streets of Brooklyn there were cliques who competed, whether in sports, for the attention of neighborhood girls, or bragging rights of any kind. These rivalries played out every day, but if any group outside the neighborhood decided to come into our territory, the cliques would join together to discourage them. 

Later in life I had several chances to ride horses and came to the sad conclusion that I never would have made it at the Triple R ranch. It was fun injecting myself into the company of Spin and Marty though, and I have to tip my cowboy hat to Walt Disney who, even in 1955 knew what kids wanted and happily gave it to us.

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What's In a Name?

The top boy's name in the 1950s, by a considerable margin, was James. My mother must have had an inkling  that the name would be popular when she named me in July of 1942. The top four runner-up names for boys in this order were Michael, Robert, John and David. The most popular five girl's names: Mary, Linda, Patricia, Susan and Deborah. Nobody called me 'James' except my mother when she was mad at me. I answered to Jim or Jimmy, the shortened form of James. I always liked the name and was told I was named for my father's father, Innocenzo. I later learned that in Italian, Innocenzo means harmless or innocent. There were 13 popes named Innocent, but it doesn't describe me very well.

I recently looked at a photo of my sixth grade grammar school class and there were eight other boys out of 53 in the class named James. We had multiple Michaels, Vincents, Josephs, Roberts, Johns and Thomases. We also had the odd Louis, Dennis, Stephen and Patrick. The only really unusual name in the group that I can recall belonged to a boy named Granville King who reminded me a lot of Stan Laurel. I believe he was born in England, a country where that name may not have drawn much attention, but I can assure you that in Brooklyn, it was noticed. Granville was an effeminate boy who would have had trouble even if he wasn't saddled with that name, but the combination of his demeanor and his name was deadly. He was teased mercilessly.

Where am I going with this? I think parents need to choose carefully when they are naming their kids. Tagging your poor child with a gimmicky name may be cute now, but the consequences down the road for your kid could be devastating. There was a Seinfeld episode where George Costanza imagined his first child might be called "Seven" after Mickey Mantle, or "Soda" just because he liked soda. The late Michael Jackson, poster boy for the seriously odd, named his kids Prince, Paris and Blanket. Those names might be OK in Hollywood, but if your kid's name is Blanket, better teach him self-defense and stock up on Band Aids. Frank Zappa painted a target on his kids' backs by naming them Moon Unit and Diva Thin Muffin. Sly Stallone cursed his daughter with Sage Moonblood.

I realize it's not the 1950s any more and those good, strong Biblical names are finding disfavor among the Pepsi generation. The top names for 2011 for boys were Jacob, William, Mason, Jayden and Noah. The first two are OK, but Mason will be called "jarhead", Jayden sounds like Superman's father and Noah means you should get the kid two of whatever pet he likes for when he builds the Ark. As for girls, the most popular names in 2011 were Sophia, Isabella, Emma, Olivia and Ava. These seem more conventional and safer. One last thought...I hate people who use initials to refer to their children. PJ, MJ, JR etc. all sound like the ass kissers who would remind the teacher she forgot to give homework over the weekend. BJ is just too unfortunate to even merit a comment.

Moms and Dads, unless like in the Johnny Cash song, "A Boy Named Sue", you want to toughen up your kid for when you're not around, let's not get too cutsey with far out names or nicknames; it's like writing a check your kids will have to cash with their fists in the schoolyard.

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