The SERIAL originally appeared on jitterbuzz.com in 1997-1998

This is THE STORY SO FAR

Installment One

Relocating

I thought I could beat the snowstorm. The clouds were white and high when I pulled out of town. When I reached the foothills the sky was dirty gray cotton. The first flakes fell tentatively across the windshield of the truck and it was only a few moments before the wipers were overloaded. The snow stuck to the ground immediately and I began to feel the fishtailing. It starts with a little shudder and then the rear end breaks loose; I steered into it and got things under control. Then the road presented me with a series of steep downhill S-bends. I inched my way through the first three as the ice thickened. The brakes were ineffective so I shifted into first gear to let the motor's compression slow the truck. The engine roared and I saw the water temperature indicator inch up. Through the white film I saw a small car dead ahead and I swerved to miss it. I remember the wheels breaking free the flash of lights as the other car passed before me and a snowbank on the other side of the road. Then it got dark.

I woke up some time later on the ground outside the truck. Everything was blanketed with snow and the plows had just about buried the truck. The sun was out. but the truck wouldn't start. I found that the light switch was still in the "on" position; the battery was probably dead. I really wasn't cold so I decided to hitchhike for help. I looked things over one more time. Aside from a tear on the leather sleeve of my 1960 Pirates warmup jacket nothing was amiss. I climbed over the mound of snow and made my way to the roadside. The road was more-or-less black with thin white slicks left from the road salt. I wasn't cold but could see no water on the road.

On the switchback above I heard a motorcycle. I didn't have to see it because the sound was unmistakable---it was a Vincent Black Shadow bored to 1100 cc calling out to me in alternating screams and growls. As it rounded the bend I saw that my ears weren't lying. The sun was full and a black machine ridden by a large bearded man with long curly hair emerged from the blinding glare. He was wearing denims a black tee shirt and aviator's goggles. Who would go riding in a blizzard? Who would go riding in a blizzard without cold weather gear? The only colors besides black and white were the thin blue flames shooting out the exhaust ports. How did he get that thing past the emissions check? Why hadn't he been stopped for riding without a helmet?

The biker downshifted. The machine backfired and rumbled its way to a stop immediately before me. It was a thing to behold, a lean spare framework of black metal with straight barsgirder forks and cantilever rear suspension. When Philip Vincent took over the HRD company, he vowed to make the "world's safest and fastest standard motorcycle." The Series C, known as the Black Shadow was the apex of his craft. Vincent hated chrome and used dull-finished stainless steel wherever possible. The bike before me was in flawless condition. The sole exception to the black color scheme were the gold art-nouveau letters HRD, surmounted by a heraldic scroll with the legend "Vincent, " on the small elliptical tank.

The biker looked at me and slowly raised the goggles to his forehead. His big teeth flashed a smile and he said, "Well, sport---I've got to pull your chestnuts out of the fire again." It was Bob Arnold, my all-time hero and role model. His hair was marcelled just like it was---how long ago was it? Twenty years? His teeth still had the perfect caps that he got from Dr. Giuliani (the "Hippie's Dentist") in return for three kilos of fine hash that had been run in from Mexico on the Vincent. Bob Arnold could make anything, had been everywhere, and knew everybody. Now he was here to help.

I didn't know what to say, so he said it for me. He stood up on the pegs, looked at the truck and said, "Yep, that's a bad one." He reached into a knapsack, produced two rat-tailed stogies, and said, "Here---you need a good cheap seegar, " as he bit the end off his. I bit mine and thought,"Pitterman's Hand Made. I haven't seen these in years. I thought old man Pitterman closed up years ago." Bob struck a big blue Ohio kitchen match on his thigh and lit both cigars,mine first. I wondered how he could ride in this weather without gloves. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "C'mon kid, we've got a long way to go."

He lowered the jenny pegs and I climbed on board. I locked my hands together and held on for dear life because I knew he was going to do a wheelie. He did not disappoint me. We took the curves at about seventy five and hit up to 130 on the straightaways. I was tired and mumbled, "I heard that you got it in Nam. I even rubbed your name on The Wall." He said, "How about something from La Boheme? He buckled his belt over my hands and sang a flawless "Che Gelida Manina" with orchestral background provided by the Vincent's exhaust. I fell asleep.

I woke up at dusk. We were on the outskirts of a gritty rustbelt city. You can always tell because the road runs next to the railroad and there are big old two story box houses on the hills above the tracks. Times have been tough to these little outlying burgs. Some of the houses have two kinds of aluminum siding. Most are badly in need of repair. There are junk cars on the lawn and planters made out of tires. We passed crudely lettered signs for home-based businesses. I saw that "Noopy" was advertising a "no-dip" wood-stripping service. The Delsea Beagle Club was going to have an "all you can eat" pancake breakfast. One fellow bought and sold Lionel Trains. An old Gulf station had been transformed into an adult book store with large black plywood signs in place of windows warning that "You Must be 21 to Enter" and that amateur videos had been reduced to $8. We came to the center of the small town and made our way through a darkening street of empty stores. The movie marquee only had the letter "X" on it and that was hanging askew. Just outside the town on the other side was a Wal-Mart. The parking lot was filled with pickups and rusting Detroit behemoths.

We forged ahead, and I saw the lights of the city. It could have been anywhere---Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron, Gary, or Toledo.

The road took us by a broad black river; the other side was lined with mills ablaze with intense pulsating fire. A slag car dumped its molten load. As the ashes cascaded down the hill, they colored the horizon bright orange. Besides sulphur, I could smell a hundred familiar industrial odors. I recognized a brewery, a coke oven, a tannery, and a stock yard. Although I was still dazed, I remember saying, "Where is the EPA?" I got an answer but I cannot remember whether it was Bob or my father who said, "Yeah, it stinks, but it means that men are working."

We turned off the road into a working class neighborhood where folks must have been doing well, because most of the row houses had been covered with formstone. The spotlessly clean street had lots of small shops. I gazed with wonder at a real barber shop with two chairs of white enamelled metal and red leather. The smell of butter cookies beckoned me from "Patsy's Bakery." I saw boxes of baccala outside a market beside pyramids of oranges lit by a bare electric bulb. A sign said, "Cukes---3 for a buck." I wanted to get off the bike and immerse myself it it. I had to touch it, feel it, and taste it. I wanted a haircut and facial topped off with bay rum. I wanted a big chocolate and vanilla cannoli. I wanted to eat a fresh tomato with just some coarse salt.

We went two more blocks and Bob pulled up to the curb. I got off and looked around at the street scene with awe. I heard Bob say, "This is it, kid. I'll be seeing you later." By the time I turned around, he was gone. There was so much that I wanted to ask him.

I was standing before "The Radium Club." It had been a store of some sort, but the owners wanted a Style Moderne image and had invested in a lot of black vitriolite sometime back in the 1930s. The doors were black glass with mother-of-pearl inlays showing jazz musicians at their craft. A red neon sign indicated that "Steaks and Chops" were served. A red carpet led to the door.

An eye appeared in a peephole and the door opened for me. I walked down a long hallway slowly measuring my tread on the black and white checkerboard marble floor. In the glow of light from several brass and ebony torchieres, I put my hand on the travertine wainscoting to make sure that it was not faux. I saw a long line of swells dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns. The maitre d', a short man with slicked back hair and a pencil moustache, stood guard at the end of the hall behind a thick red velvet cord. I took my place in line. The little headwaiter looked at me, turned away and waved his hand into the darkness beyond. A very big man in a tuxedo appeared. As he approached, I saw that he must have been about six-foot-six and had a big scar under his eye and a cauliflower ear. His suit was well-cut with satin peak lapels and a high-Hamilton starched wing collar. There was something vaguely familiar about him. With disses and dats he said something about dress-clothes being required. I stopped and made ready to beat it before I was thrown out. I stood there facing the bouncer. The frame froze and I could hear my heart beating.

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Installment Two

The Radium Club

A door opened and the picture fluttered back into action. A very big black man stepped out and smiled at me. He was wearing an impeccably tailored full dress suit of dazzling white, right down to the patent leather pumps. He looked like Jimmy Rushing, "Mr. Five by Five" himself. There wasn't a single hair on his head, not even eyebrows. All his jewelry was platinum, including a number of rings and a thick chain. My eyes were drawn to the little wings set with a two carat diamond that served as a watch fob. This was a man with a lot of class. He was also the boss. With but the slightest wave of his hand, he motioned the bouncer away and said, "This cat's with the band." He put his huge arm around me and said, "Come in, my man, I've been expecting you." I passed out.

I woke up on a leather couch. I felt very refreshed and sat up. As I yawned and scratched my head, I gradually noticed my surroundings. I was in an office. The walls were of some tawny wood, probably ash. There were no corners---rather, the wood had been bent into quarter round. A band of three closely spaced brass strips ran around the top of the room about a foot below the ceiling soffits which held indirect lighting. The vaulted ceiling had been painted a light blue. The furnishings were all tan leather, two couches, some chairs, a table, and a desk. The walls were hung with oil paintings of race horses. Several leather-shaded brass lamps set on end tables. My host reappeared from a side door. I noticed that all the doors were padded and covered with leather, studded with brass nails in a diamond pattern. This theme was repeated in the furniture as well. Again, I received a warm smile and a hand on my shoulder.

I said, "I'm sorry---I had an auto accident this morning. I apologize for fainting." My host said, "That's just fine. My name is Peter and you could use a drink." He walked to one wall and pressed a button. A panel slid back and revealed a full bar. All of the glass, including the mirror had a peach-colored cast. I said, "I really don't drink, thank you." He poured me a brandy and said, "I think that you'll need this." I took it, and had a sip. The liquid was fiery but had an amazingly smooth taste; the aroma filled my head and I felt pleasure, without any effects of intoxication. The stuff must have been at least sixty years old. I felt a lot better. I said, "Your bouncer is a dead ringer for Primo Carnera." Peter smiled and said, "Could be," while directing me to his desk. He offered me a chair, and I sat down. He sat behind the desk and hummed a little tune. He withdrew a folio size leather bound book from a side drawer. Turning it toward me, he said, "Would you please sign our guest register?" I looked at him and didn't know what to say. He said, "We have a lot of distinguished guests here." I looked through a few pages and agreed with him---I saw Bix Biederbecke, Jimmy Lunceford, Benny Goodman, Ziggy Elman, Mike Bloomfield, Muddy Waters and Albert King among the names on my page alone. I was tempted to look back to see who was on the hundred or so pages before me. I said, "I'm not famous---I don't even belong in the same state as these guys. How come I've never heard of this place?" Peter smiled and said, "We've heard a lot about you. And, I think that you have heard a lot about us as well. Please sign in, my man." I took an elegant gold pen out of his desk set and signed the register. Peter offered me his hand and said, "Welcome to the club."

He gave me a broad grin and said, "Look at this." He pressed a button on the desk and a part of one wall retracted to show the action in the club. He motioned me toward the window and I looked down at the stage. He pressed another button and the sound was piped into the office. Peter tells me that my jaw almost dropped off when I saw the band. Both John Lee Williamson and Willie "Rice" Miller were handling the vocals and harmonica on "Fattening Frogs for Snakes." I could not believe it---both Sonny Boys were on the stage at the same time, performing the same song---LIVE. How many hours had I spent in college debating the question of "Which Sonny Boy was best?" I looked back at Peter like a kid at his first Christmas. He smiled back and said, "Check out the band." Just then came time for the guitar solo and I snapped my head back---it was Muddy Waters. Not only that, Otis Spann was on piano, Willie Dixon played bass and Fred Bellow was on drums. Live, here, now was the immortal Chess studio band at their peak undimmed by disease, alcohol and age. They were . . . well . . . heavenly. I said to Peter, "I saw Rice Miller with the Yardbirds in 1967 at Leeds." He said, "Yes, I know---he was pretty far gone. That was just before he took this gig."

Peter and I listened for a while and then he said, "I've got to get back to work. Stick around and enjoy the show. Primo will get you settled. " He gave me another one of those two hundred watt grins and said, "He's really a big pussycat." I smiled back and gave him a high five.

Installment Three

The Lay of the Land

This is an interesting place. (Say, there's understatement for you.) It has nothing to do with sitting on clouds. True, we spend a lot of time praising The Boss, but he is really a great guy and it comes easy. Some stuff that you may have heard is true. You can eat as much as you want and you don't get fat. You can drink as much as you want and you don't get drunk. Marijuana is legal here. In fact, everyone who used to be a High School guidance counselor is assigned to a street corner. He (or she) is obligated to roll cigar-sized joints and offer them to passers by on a silver tray.

On the other hand, you have to work. There are a lot of jobs and everybody can find something to do that is satisfying. It's a lot like 1968 without Vietnam. There is no disease, but you feel things. If you fall off a ladder, you break bones. You can cut yourself shaving. On the other hand, there are great health care benefits, and anything can be fixed up good as new. Of course, you have to spend time convalescing, so you have to think for a while before jumping a motorcycle over 20 parked busses. The folks over at Celestial General rue the day that Evel Knievel got in, and they have been trying to tighten admission requirements ever since. The Boss enjoys the outrageous, so we will continue to have a number of daredevils. On balance, this is a lot like where I came from without all the hassles. There are no wasps and watermelons don't have seeds. There are neither speed limits nor helmet laws. Nobody lies, cheats, or steals, so there are no cops. You can have all the guns you want, but through some odd exception to physical laws, they won't work if you point them at anything that is alive.

I spent some time carefully restoring a Purdey side by side shotgun --- there is a skeet range across town where they use Lladro and Hummel figurines as targets. There is nothing quite like getting up on a clear, bright morning and going off to the range. Taking two carefully hand-loaded brass ten gauge shells from my leather belt, I delight in saying, "Put up a Hansel and Gretel." Finally, I know why The Boss created these things.

There are no taxes. The only government agencies are the Post Office and the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The former has the same function as on Earth, while the latter is somewhat different. Everyone has something constructive to do, so there is no place for politicians. There is a lot of music and, like Earth, you have a lot more fun if you're in the band.

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Installment Four

Getting Started

I spent my first night at the Radium Club. I was too excited to move. At about 3:00 a.m., lots of other musicians came in and joined the band---Albert King, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Croce, and Janis Joplin. I am somewhat reluctant to call it a jam session, or even the mother of jam sessions. How can you describe a set where Philip Augustus Bach and Professor Longhair play two-piano boogie-woogie? Jimmy Lunceford dropped by with a 27 piece band after they had done a gig at Moses' place. (He's partial to both Klezmer and Harlem Renaissance.) Harpo and Chico Marx showed up and did some stand-up and a funny bit on piano and harp. Later, I found this was a slow night. Of course, there is great music everywhere. The other day, I saw Enrico Caruso singing on a street corner, just for fun.

In the morning, Primo took me out for breakfast at a nearby diner. There are diners everywhere, scrupulously clean, and open twenty four hours per day. While we were enjoying our coffee and buckwheat cakes, a young fellow came in and sat next to us. He was dressed in baggy white pants, deck shoes and a tee shirt from the 1976 Wings World Tour. It had been signed by Paul McCartney.

Primo introduced me to the fellow as Herb, who was going to be a sort of mentor for me while I got accustomed to living here. There are a number of little things that you have to do, like find a place to live, get a job and decide what you want to look like. You can pick any period in your life for your appearance. During a probationary period, you can experiment but you have to make a choice and then you stay permanently there.

While I was thinking about all this, Herb interrupted me. He pulled out a wad of money and said, "Here---you'll need this to get started. This isn't charity, because we know that you really can't take it with you." I counted it, and it was about $10,000. Herb looked at me and said, "When that's gone, we'll get you some more." I expressed my gratitude and offered to pay for the meal. Breakfast for three came to $1.75. I left a $5 tip. This place was looking pretty good.

Herb said that the management had arranged for some temporary quarters. He took me to an apartment house about a block away. The place was the whole second floor of a solid brick corner building, above a bagel bakery. A turret room with lots of light overhung the corner; the vaulted ceiling wasn't bad either. The rooms were spacious, but the kitchen was something to behold. The centerpiece was a classic 1936 stainless steel streamlined Magic Chef range, with a special heavy aluminum adjustable broiler. The clock worked. There was also an Apex wood-burning stove, enamelled in cream and red. The countertops were inlaid linoleum and the whole kitchen was tiled from floor to ceiling in a red and white diamond pattern. Off the kitchen was an elaborate wrought iron balcony that might have been imported from the French Quarter.

There were two large bedrooms, a parlor, and a dining room. Elegantly inlaid pocket doors made it possible to close off the dining room for sit-down meals. Herb said that the landlord was leaving some furniture behind for me. This included a large brass cannonball bed, a chesterfield sofa, and a round leather-topped table for the turret. The rent was $65 per month. Herb said, "You understand, this is only temporary." It seemed like the right time, so I asked, "By the way, how long do you mean?" He replied, "Oh, about fifty years." I accepted on the spot. I decided that I would strip and refinish the woodwork since I was going to be there for a while.

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Installment Five

The East End Cultural Association

I spent my first day getting some things together. I walked down the street to a real Turkish bath. I was a bit seedy from my trip, so I had a first class steam and Swedish massage. Then I swam a few laps in the Moorish style "Natatorium." I met a few fellows and they invited me to stop back for a game of handball. The next stop was the barber. I blew $2.25 on the works - haircut, beard trim, manicure and a hot oil facial. Redolent of lilac oil, my next stop was the pizzeria. I had a rather large pie with olives, fresh tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and mushrooms. On the table were substantial bowls of crushed red peppers, oregano, and grated Pecorino cheese. I turned down the proprietor's offer of some homemade wine in preference for mineral water. He looked disappointed. Then I went to the bakery. I bought two fresh cannoli, intending to eat them in a little park outside and watch the old men play bocce. I asked the baker for coffee to go, but he suggested that I try the espresso at the neighborhood social club next door. I did just that.

It wasn't hard to find the club. The plate glass windows were painted dark green leaving only a foot of clear glass at the top to admit light. Crossed Italian and American flags had been painted on the windows amidst a sign-painter's cornucopia of sunbursts, medallions, scrolls, lions, and seraphim; gold-leaf lettering announced the presence of the "East End Cultural Association." As I think of it, the design on the window looked sort of like a can of Medaglia D'Oro coffee.

I rang the buzzer and the door opened. I explained that I was new in the neighborhood and that I might want to join. I was heartily welcomed into the room by a gentleman with brown curly hair over a high forehead and a Roman nose. He was wearing a white apron, the pants from a hard-finish gabardine suit, a white-on-white shirt, a black crepe tie, and high button leather shoes. The shoes were particularly interesting---ostrich uppers and hard-shell cordovan lowers. You can always tell a lot by a person's shoes, and these highly polished beauties bore every sign of meticulous care He introduced himself as Fannoli and guided me by the arm to a small wooden table which he carefully wiped with a napkin before holding the chair for me. The table held a carnation in a plain glass tumbler, a wooden box of dominoes, and a deck of cards.

Fannoli looked my little cardboard box and said, "You have been to Patsy's. "Shall I bring you espresso?" I nodded, and my cannoli went with him to a monumental brass espresso machine that sat in the center of the far wall. His measured pace made me think of a priest at Mass. As he prepared the coffee the image grew stronger. My eyes were drawn upward to the enormous brass eagle which surmounted the machine and the word "Excelsior" engraved in large ornate script below it. With the rush of steam, he extracted the strong brew into a small white china cup and decorated it with a lemon zest.

He took two large spoons from his apron and used them to place my cannoli on a plain white plate. The goodies were borne to me on a tray carried overhead on the upturned palm of his right hand. He set them before me and produced a fork, small spoon and a white linen napkin, which was spread on my lap. He smiled, bowed and backed away. Let me assure you that everything was (as Bill and Ted might say,) most excellent. Here, everything has a lot of class---people pay a lot of attention to details.

I was greatly refreshed by my dessert. As a warm mellow feeling crept over me, my eyes were drawn to two men having an animated discussion at a table across the room. One man was rather short with snow-white hair and beard; he seemed to be the perfect counterpoint to his companion, a tall, lanky black man. Periodically, the bearded man would rise from the table, walk around and point to the ceiling. The black man just leaned back in his chair, occasionally rocking back and forth. They seemed to be having quite a give and take. I watched them for half an hour. Every so often, something funny must have been said, because they would roar with laughter and point at each other. Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. I motioned to Fannoli, and he approached silently. He said, "May I get you more coffee, sir?" I nodded and he turned abruptly. I called him back, perhaps a bit too loud. He turned, and said, "Yes, sir?" I motioned him to come closer and whispered into his ear, "Who are those two gentlemen?" His reply was, "Why sir, they are Socrates and Satchel Paige." I was too astonished to ask what they were talking about.

As I got ready to leave, Fannoli informed me that my coffee had been "on the house" and that Herb had made all the arrangements for my membership. I left him a $5.00 tip, and he walked me to the door and brushed my jacket off with a whisk broom. He looked at the rip in the leather sleeve and suggested a place to have it fixed, so off I went.

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Installment Six

The Right Threads

At the end of the street was a small store. The large brass letters on the dark green lintel said, "JAYSON'S MENS WEAR." The shop windows had several conservative men's suits hanging on walnut stands, along with a display of fabrics. No mannequins---the sign of a better tailor. I entered the door and a small bell jangled. The walls were panelled with walnut and there were several leather chairs and a few display cabinets. On one wall, bolts of fabric were stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling. I browsed at the display of ties and accessories. Soon, a man emerged from behind a heavy green velvet curtain. To my surprise, it was Mr. Pritchard, my lifelong salesman at Brooks Brothers. This was a bit unnerving, because this was my first occasion to talk to someone whom I knew had passed on. Mr. Pritchard had sold me my first suit in Pittsburgh and had somehow appeared in Washington just as I moved there. Now he was going to be selling me suits in the hereafter.

I received a warm welcome. On the other hand this is no big deal because everyone is always glad to see you. He shook my hand and said that "Mr. Herbert" had told him that I would be dropping by. I paused and said, "You know, Brooks has moved to selling men's suits as separates." He lowered his head and nodded, almost in shame and said, "A sad indication of the influence of the Other Fellow. You know he has been trying very hard to make an inroad into menswear for such a long time, what with Nehru jackets, leisure suits, and doubleknits."

He regained his composure and asked me to slip out of my Pirates jacket; he ran his hand lovingly over it. "A 1960 team jacket," he mused as he took it behind the curtain. He saw my apprehension and said, "We'll have it fixed in no time. You can take along what you're wearing." He showed me to a stack of fabrics. I allowed that due to my circumstances, I needed a full wardrobe. He nodded wisely. I indicated that there seemed to be a number of high class clubs, and that I would need a tuxedo. He nodded and said that dress suits were also worn. I could see the bills piling up, so I confided in him, "I don't have a job yet. I don't want to look like I am taking advantage of the folks up here. Perhaps we can soft pedal the soup-and-fish rig." He smiled and assured me that Central Management had made provision for a complete gentleman's wardrobe - it was all part of the normal orientation package. Actually, he paused after the word "normal", and parenthetically added, "Everyone who comes here is a V.I.P." I said, "O.K. Let's do it."

We selected the fabrics for a number of suits and jackets He took me by the arm and led me to the green curtain, which he deftly parted with his free hand. "May I introduce you to Mr. Berman, our fitter," he said with a most deferential tone. My eyes opened wide, and I said, "Are you Sidney Berman who used to have a shop on Olliver Street?" He smiled and said, "Yes I am---My family is in business there since 1870, myself since 1926." Somewhat thoughtlessly, I blurted out, "Do you know that there is a Sharper Image store there now?" A sour look came over his face and he said, "Ptah! May they go into Chapter Eleven and never come out." I said, "I didn't mean to upset you, Mr. Berman- --I have wanted one of your suits all my life." I paused, thought about it for a second, and added, "Well, you know what I mean." The smile returned to his face.

He took out his tape measure while Mr. Pritchard stood ready with an elegant gold pen to record the results. The whole process requires about an hour and involves more than 100 separate data items. I was surprised to see that I had lost four inches from my waist since yesterday. The measurement ritual was complete when Berman discreetly whispered in my ear, "Which side, sir?" With as much nonchalance as I could muster, I replied, "The left." "Very good, sir," was the reply. He retired to a large calendar and said, "A baste fitting will be available six weeks from now." As Berman adjourned to his cutting room, Mr. Pritchard observed solemnly that this was a good time and that Roberto Clemente had to wait six weeks as well. Even here, one apparently does not rush a hand-tailored suit.

I left the fitting room, and Mr. Pritchard had a few more items for my attention including THE trench coat. Not just any raincoat, but an exact duplicate of a 1914 British aviator's flight coat in hard-finish twill, with bone buttons and leather strap closures. "Completely gas-proof when the collar yoke is fastened, with an extra-long belt for tying as well as buckling," he intoned and added, "Our very finest model." "Sold," I said. After some final pleasantries, I made ready to leave, but he stopped me and said, "One moment sir." He retired behind the green curtain and returned with my Pirates jacket. Not only had the torn sleeve been repaired, but the frayed collar and sleeve had been replaced. He said, "Mr. Berman provides fast service for some items. The last time we saw one of these was when Danny Murtaugh visited us."

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Installment Seven

The Working Man's Store

I walked out into the afternoon sun and my eyes dazzled a bit after the dark, calm wood and velvet of the Mr. Berman's enclave. I shaded my eyes and looked across the street. It took a second to focus, but my eyes finally made out the words "THE WORKING MAN'S STORE, Al Wrobleski Prop." I did not walk. I abandoned all pretense of nonchalance and ran across the street, feeling a lot like the hick tourist who cannot help but stare upward at the skyscraper. I pressed my face to the window and saw wondrous things. I opened the door with reverence.

The main floor was set with a number of small counters. A mezzanine balcony reached by a round wrought iron staircase. The place was lit by hanging glass globes. The pressed tin ceiling was home to four fans of some archaic vintage. I crossed myself and said, "Dear Lord, don't let this be turned into a fern bar." It felt strange to make a local prayer; the connection seemed to be much better than long distance from Earth. I wandered around the various counters in total amazement.

A very large man dressed in the vest and pants of a nondescript gray-green suit came out of the back room. Everyone here is honest, so most merchants don't even bother to tend the store. The fellow had a battered fedora pushed back on his head and was eating (not smoking) a green cigar. He had a pair of thick black plastic glasses, one of whose hinges had been replaced with a small brass safety pin. He extended his big hand and said, "Hi there, I'm Al. What can I do you for?" I allowed that I was new and required some basic elements of wardrobe. Al waddled over to a wall and produced a large brass hand basket. He carefully unfolded the handles and gave it to me with the suggestion that I should pick out whatever I wanted. He would be available if needed. He turned, paused, and said, "The fittin' room is over there." He pointed to a plain door over which a hand-lettered sign said, "a Maximum of 27 garments may be taken into the fitting room." He retired to a stand-up desk at the front of the store and devoted his attention to a paper which looked suspiciously like the Baseball Digest.

I had a field day. My first choice was a dozen Golden Fleece triple weight 100% cotton tee shirts. They feel great and last forever. Next came a dozen blue cotton chambray work shirts with placket front and a slot for a carpenter's pencil on the left breast pocket. They get better as you wear them. You get extra-heavy starch put in them and you can wear it on the first day with a knit tie. Then you wear it as a sport shirt and then you wear it under a sweater.

There were other treasures yet to be found. I picked a big bundle of cotton crew socks and another bundle of wool socks. I found a pile of collarless button-up tops to a Union Suit in bright red. Four of them went into the box. On a rack, were heavy twill khaki work pants---with watch pocket---in 34x29. They wear forever, but I got threes pairs, just in case. Next were two pairs of button-fly denims and a dozen black muscle tee shirts. The amazing thing was that all the clothes were in the appropriate bin for their size. The best thing about this place is the small things; you never have to sort through a pile to find the Extra Large shirts.

I made my way to the shoe department and lovingly put my hands on a pair of Iron City oil-tanned work boots with "steel safety toe" and braided leather laces. I snapped up a pair of real elk-tanned Top-Siders. Elated with my treasures, I was about to rush off, when---I swear---a pair of alligator skin cowboy boots stepped out at me. They might have been the Holy Grail. It took several minutes just to get the courage to pick them up. Of course, they fit perfectly as does everything else here. (You would expect less?)

Al looked over at me and said, "They're something aint they? Funny thing, they've been there for as long as I can remember and you're the first one that they fit. Lots of guys tried them on." I suggested that I would wear them, and he nodded. I didn't see any athletic shoes, particularly the designer brands. Al said, "Don't get much call for them here. Maybe you can find some over the river." I let that slide, enraptured by my new find.

I brought everything to the counter and Al said, "It's cold outside, how about something for your head?" He produced a hard-finished charcoal gabardine six panel cap with a button in the center. It felt very comfortable pulled down to the left and the brim seemed to jump into the perfect crease. Hoping against hope, I said, "You wouldn't happen to have a suit made out of this material, would you?" He said, "Why sure---let me help you out." Sure enough, he had a whole rack of them. He said, "Wait a minute, you'll need some accessories for that." He rummaged in a drawer and came out with a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of red suspenders. "Just right for sitting on the stoop," he observed. When I tried to pay for my treasure trove, Al said, "Herb what's-his-name came by and set up an account for you. Let's just charge this and I'll have Billy drop it off at your house this afternoon." Here, everyone has an account and everybody delivers.

Installment Eight

Hats and Shoes

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. I had so much luck shopping that I decided to press forward. A brief stroll down the street put me before a rather small store. In gold letters, a sign announced, "MAX BRODT, Manufacturing Hatter." I stepped inside to a world of hats. Mr. Brodt was behind his counter and gave me a pleasant, but quizzical look. I quickly removed my gabardine cap, and nervously muttered something about it being a "temporary stopgap." Again, there was the Heavenly smile. He offered to show me some caps in tweed. I said that I needed something more dressy, perhaps a Homburg. His smile broadened. Remembering the swells at the Radium Club, I inquired about dress hats as well. He became even more expansive and came out from behind the counter and shook my hand warmly. We settled on an opera hat and I looked forward to snapping it open.

He took my measurements with a strange looking machine that had a large number of small dowels set in a grid. When the thing was pressed on your head, the various dowels were pushed upward and left an exact impression of the skull. Each dowel is graduated according to an arcane system, and the hatter can take down sufficient data that allows the cutting of perfect patterns. From that point, wool, felt, and leather would be sewn together and treated with various chemicals and live steam. A silk lining, calfskin sweatband, ribbon, and a feather would complete the job. The whole thing would be wrapped in tissue paper and packaged in its own tall oval hatbox, a delight to behold. It would be delivered.

The completion of my sartorial splendor would be achieved at the cobbler, who was conveniently located in the basement of Mr. Brodt's building. I had to go outside, into the alley. I noticed a large shoe hanging from an iron bracket and an arrow pointing down. I wasn't very surprised---shoemakers are always in the basement. I opened the door and entered a world redolent of oil and leather. The left wall had shelves filled with parcels, neatly wrapped in brown paper and twine. The right wall's shelves were filled with yellow boxes. The parcels were repair orders awaiting customer pickup or delivery. The boxes held the custom "lasts" which had been made for each patron. A display case doubled as a counter.

Inside were several curiosities of the cobbler's art, such as a giant shoe and a pair of curly-toed Moorish slippers, intended to display the considerable talent of the owner. In the back of the shop were all the machines used in the process of making shoes, surrounded by their spider web of leather drive belts. One electric motor drives everything. Regardless of which machine is needed, everything turns. The shop resonated with the peculiar whirring, clattering, and wheezing of this mechanical symphony.

Mr. Scarpini was at work with a small hammer and a mouthful of nails. As he finished the deft nailing of a replacement heel, he produced a razor-sharp curved knife and trimmed the excess to a perfect shape with one undisturbed motion. A small brush dipped into an ancient jar of black varnish gave the proper color to the heel. He lovingly set the shoe down, took a red cloth in his hand and strolled toward me. He made a note on a small slip of paper drawn from the right pocket of his gray shop coat. He approached me and said, "You have shoes for repair, Signor?" "No," I said, "Mr. Pritchard recommended you for several pairs of new shoes." His face beamed, and he said, "Un momento Signor." He withdrew into a small room and, after a few minutes, returned in a dark black jacket. He had carefully washed his hands and slicked back his hair. "Scusi," he said, "even here, is hard to get good help."

I ordered black and brown cap-toe brogans for daily wear. He said, "Mmmn." I mentioned dress pumps for formal wear and black & white spectator shoes for dancing. He smiled and said, "Mmmn Hmm - a Lindy Hopper, huh? We get a lot of them --- when they gonna send up Frankie Manning?"

"Probably never," was my response, because I had just seen him dance with 112 women last May.

I described the high topped shoes with ostrich uppers that I had seen in the Social Club and Scarpini nodded with a big smile. He touched my elbow and said, "I make you spats, eh?" That was just fine with me, to which I added, "White and dove grey---and gloves, too." He laughed and said, "Bene Bene. We have some wine while we make casts." Before I could object, he went back to his office and returned with an earthenware crock and two juice glasses. He poured some wine and we went over the small details. The wine was very good; he had made it from dandelions.

We began the process with a foot bath. He produced a large white enamel wash basin edged in red. I removed shoes and socks, and he carefully washed and dried my feet. He took a length of piano wire and ran it across the top of my foot, over the top of my big toe, down the sole and back up the heel. Both ends were secured to my ankle with tape. I sat patiently while he used an oil to grease my feet; he produced a group of slat-like boards which were assembled into boxes. These were lubricated as well, and he mixed Plaster of Paris. About an inch of plaster was added to the box, followed by my feet and more plaster, covering them to just below the ankle bone.

Sipping my wine, I sat motionless for about half an hour. Scarpini inquired about my background while he kept a trained eye on the casts. He was very pleased to hear that my grandfather had come from a village next to his just outside Naples. He sang Finniculi Finnicula in a most accomplished tenor and made the time pass a little faster with more wine. Eventually, his trained eye determined that the plaster had reached the proper consistency. The slat boxes were carefully disassembled, leaving rectangular blocks. With the piano wire, he deftly sawed through the slightly moist plaster. This yielded two halves of a negative impression which Scarpini will fill with plaster to make an exact replica of my feet. He will use a special machine--- called a pantograph---to duplicate the plaster version in wood. Next, he will shape and sew leather over this wooden foot ---or "last"---to make the uppers of the shoe. Soles, heels, and other details are added to complete the work. Every step is incredibly difficult and takes years to master. If there were no shoe-making machines, the world would be barefoot. Handmade shoes live forever provided that you keep them clean and replace the heels and soles every so often.

Scarpini washed my feet again and handed me a fresh towel. He carefully picked up my alligators, smoothed them with his hands and ran a cloth over them. With a professional but somewhat envious tone, he said, "Nice boots for factory made. Bring them around tomorrow and I reline them with calfskin. A tick here, a tick there and they be thousand times better." I did and they were.

Installment Nine

Dinner With Some Luminaries

It was about five in the afternoon when I finally bid farewell to Mr. Scarpini. I planned to walk home, lay down for a while and have a nice dinner. I strolled around for a little while and saw a little sign by an open doorway. It said "St. Vincent De Paul" and it had an arrow pointing down to the cellar. In the past, I had bought some of my best furniture in places like this, so I took a chance. At the bottom of the stairs was a plain door. It was closed, so I turned to leave. Then I thought that there was nothing to lose---after all, everyone had been pretty friendly up to now. Besides, if they were closed, nobody would be there. I knocked. The door opened. A very pleasant older man dressed in the robes of a Franciscan friar stood in the doorway and greeted me in a very soft voice, "How may I help you, son?" It took a second for it to finally sink in---I was talking to Saint Vincent De Paul. I hemmed and hawed for some time. He broke the silence with a smile, "You're new and you have to furnish your apartment." I nodded sheepishly. He said, "It happens all the time, particularly with people who did graduate work. I am apparently more famous for my order's thrift stores than for my work among the poor in Africa. Please step in and have some tea."

The next part is important. I want to get it right but I am afraid words may fail me. Up to this point, everything I experienced had made me comfortable and minimized the shock of transition. However, eternity is not based on cannoli, alligator boots or good service. Rather, all of these good things flow because the folks here know and value themselves and share their good feelings with everyone else. It only took a few minutes in Saint Vincent's presence for me to understand that my job for the next few years would be to find something to do that sprang directly from my inner self. I had to choose a job that I would be excited about doing---something that I would do without getting paid, something that I would grow into and master. I had been admitted because there was, in fact, a task that I could do with that kind of enthusiasm. Of course, I had no idea what that might be. Ordinary folks have to discover themselves here, while Saints have done that on Earth. Saint Vincent is a regular guy; I had a lot of emotions in his presence, but guilt was not one of them. Believe me, saints are not do-gooders. They can pull you along and give you understanding, but they do not make you feel ashamed of anything.

Our conversation must have gone on for three hours, but it seemed like minutes. We talked about subjects from the sublime (cosmology) to the mundane (baseball.) I felt my mind working at five times normal speed. At a pause in the conversation, Saint Vincent said, "You know, I'm hungry. Would you like to join me for some Chinese?" Who was I to turn down a dinner invitation from a Saint? As we walked through the street, he took my arm and said, "I think that you'll like this place and my usual dinner companions." We turned into a little alley and paused at a plain red doorway lit by a bare electric bulb. "No name, but a Saint know about it---must be an amazing restaurant," I thought. I was not disappointed. The door opened to a vision of Oriental splendor. The headwaiter was dressed in a very well cut tuxedo (Berman must be working overtime) and he showed us to an ornate booth covered by a cupola. We sat down and had some more tea.

We were chatting pleasantly when the crowd seemed to come alive with a collective murmur. I looked up and the headwaiter was guiding two very well-dressed and distinguished oriental gentlemen through the room in the general direction of our table. The two were apparently out for a night on the town, since they were fully decked out in white tie and tails. They were the picture of sophistication. The taller man was quite old, but he had a lively step. He was wearing perfectly round tortoise-shell glasses which magnified his expressive eyes. The other man was short and somewhat overweight. His smooth moon face was deeply tanned and highlighted by a brilliant smile. As they walked through the room, they paused to wave, smile, shake hands with the gents, and kiss the ladies. As they approached our table, Saint Vincent rose; reflexively, I got up as well. Two waiters had appeared from nowhere and seated our visitors with great deference. Saint Vincent extended his right hand, palm up and said, "I would like to introduce you to Mr. Confucius and Mr. Gautama."

Both smiled pleasantly at me as I stood there. I was ready to shake hands, but my index finger reflexively pointed to the left and the right in rapid oscillation as my mouth fell open, first a little and then a lot. All that I could manage was something like, "You are THAT Mr. Confucius and Mr. Gautama?" I was interrupted by Confucius who broke in, "Yes, that's us, Mr. Mind and Mr. Activity, the joy-boys from the East." To which the Buddha added, "Say, how about the feel of one hand shaking? Put her there, pard." Dazed, I shook both hands. I noticed that Buddha had slipped something onto Confucius' chair behind his back. When we sat down, a peculiar sound emanated from the old sage's direction; his eyes opened to big circles, magnified ever so much the more by his glasses. There was a flutter of awareness and then he did a slow burn, turning slowly to Buddha. At this time, Gautama broke out laughing and pointed to the foil of his joke and managed to get out , "Be always alert," but then lost it as he said, "especially for whoopee cushions!" At this, both men doubled up. Confucius removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. Regaining his composure, he said, "When substance exceeds refinement, one becomes rude. When refinement exceeds substance, one becomes urbane. It is only when one's substance and refinement are properly blended that he becomes a superior man." He put his left hand on the Buddha's shoulder and offered him his hand to show that there were no hard feelings, adding, "The superior man is conciliatory."

Buddha did not see the joy buzzer. At the sound of "bzzzt", it was Buddha's turn for wide-eyed amazement. Confucius said, "The superior man understands righteousness." Buddha recovered and said, Raji han o hiku. ("The leper drags his friends along with him.") They laughed and hugged each other. Then I noticed that they had placed "Kick Me" signs on each others' backs.

I don't know what happened to me, but the whole tableau made me very uneasy. I turned to Saint Vincent and asked him if I might speak for a moment. He said, "Yes, I believe that I know what you are thinking. Please, go ahead." Our guests gave me encouragement as well, and expressed genuine concern. My little monologue went something like this, "This is my first full day here and I really don't know much about what goes on. I've always had great respect for the three of you, so I don't want to offend, but . . ." I paused for a second. My companions encouraged me to go on, so I continued, "I am having a lot of trouble deciding whether any of this is real. This neighborhood is just like Bloomfield, Saint Vincent looks and sounds like a Christian Brothers commercial, and you two could pass for the heavies in a Dashiell Hammet novel. Now, what's really going on here?"

My guests smiled and I got the confidence to elaborate, "Grand Master K'ung. Is that right?" Confucius smiled and nodded. I continued, "Grand Master K'ung, you spent your whole life teaching that a man with virtue establishes his own character by establishing the character of others. Where is the jen in a whoopee cushion? And you, Lord Buddha, in what bhodisatva did you get that whoopee cushion? Is this the dharma of Don Rickles? Why should this place be just like my childhood? Why don't you guys act like leaders of major religions? Please tell me what's going on."

Saint Vincent put his hand on my shoulder and began, "Let me assure you that everything is quite "real". This is really happening and you are not imagining it. The Grand Master and the Bhagavat are the real McCoy. Since you are a mathematician, let me ask you a question: "What is the difference between Euclidean and Non-Euclidean geometry?" I answered, "The Parallel Postulate: In Euclidean geometry one and only one line may be drawn through a fixed point parallel to a given line. There are a number of variants which change this axiom. Riemann founded a school where an infinite number of parallel lines may be drawn through the point. There are others where no such lines may be drawn. Riemann's version is the basis for the Theory of Relativity." Buddha said, "Guess what --- Riemann was right." I sat back and said, "How about that." Perhaps too eagerly, I added, "Have you got an algorithm for generating prime numbers?" Confucius spoke up, " I understand your curiosity. My first question here was "Can the Tao be learned?" In time, all technical questions will be answered. Let's stick to the point of your question. Knowledge depends on objective reality to be correct, but what it depends on is uncertain and changeable. How do we know that what I call T'ien (Heaven) is not really man and what I call man is not really T'ien?"

Gautama then spoke, "Nirvana can only be attained with a pure mind arising from absolute quietude and only after erroneous thoughts are eliminated. See your own nature and become a Buddha. It is most important that the pupil discover the truth himself, so I have made a point of inspiring teachers to 'Never tell too plainly.' Time---and we have had a lot of it---has taught us that any unorthodox method of shocking a pupil out of outmoded mental habits and preconceived opinions can render his mind pure, clear, and thoroughly awakened. Examine your state of mind now and compare it with before. Is your life a pair of alligator boots?"

Saint Vincent added his perspective, "My son, your purpose here is to find yourself and thereby to find God. Your reality is comforting to you so that you may pursue your search. Build from this point to something sublime. For example, consider this perfect lotus blossom." He showed me the most beautiful white flower I had ever seen. As I gazed into it, I got a face full of water. My three companions cracked up and roared with laughter. I had been initiated into the gang. We had a great meal. Without boring you with the details, let me say that if you are going out for Chinese, go with Confucius. My consciousness was certainly expanded; I spent much of the evening looking out for plastic insects in the drinks, itching powder, and exploding cigars.

Installment Ten

The LifeVision Channel

Yes, we have television here---4000 channels of it, enough to serve every niche market in Paradise. Among lots of others, we have channels for Wing Care, Unicyclists, Basic and Advanced Harp and collectors of Zippo Lighters. Did you know that a series of dots (".") and slashes ("/") stamped on the bottom of the case are a code for the date when each Zippo lighter was manufactured? Did you know that the Zippo company honors its lifetime guarantee even here? Yep---and Sears' warranty on Craftsman tools still holds here. Of course, everything has an ironclad lifetime warranty here and folks are downright cheerful about honoring them. Without further digression, let me say that television is very informative. About a month ago, I got a flier from the Cable Company that advertised a new interactive service. Called LifeVision, it makes it possible for you to view past events in your life on Earth. I thought about it for a while and decided to take them up on a free trial offer. I wanted to look back on my very brief career as a professional musician. After installing some new software, I sat back in my armchair and this is what I saw:

The program took me back to the spring of 1968. I had just returned to graduate school after a stint in New York. It was also the first time that I saw Leo Greenblatt. He was about eighteen and was playing twelve bar blues on an old Gibson guitar in the student union at Carnegie Tech. He had obviously been listening to the right music, mostly Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. We got a lot of would-be troubadours at the time. Mostly they were runaways playing for change or Dylan wannabes, out to "find America." What caught my ear was Leo's singing. He was not just another white boy imitating the blues. He had amazing control of time and phrasing and his music truly came from the heart---although it was unlikely that a doctor's son from Squirrel Hill had done any heavy duty suffering. Something about Leo was definitely appealing; people would want to listen to this guy sing.

I would have dropped some change in Leo's guitar case and gone on with my life, but Don Newman and Haskell Small arrived at just the right moment. They recognized Leo's talent as well. In what seemed like another life, Don and I had endured seven long years of woodwind lessons, taught by Jerry Levine of the Civic Light Opera orchestra. Jerry stressed the syrupy sweet saxophone, a style which was guaranteed to be non-threatening to parents or high school music teachers. On a weekly basis, we enraged Jerry with our wailing version of the Memphis horn sound. Don went to Pitt and then came to Tech for graduate work. Along the way, he had become the best harmonica player in the city. Haskell had been an electrical engineer and had switched to a piano major. He has since become a concert pianist of note.

We seized the moment and invited Leo over for coffee to find out whether he would be interested in playing with a band. He was a loner and a musical iconoclast, but he realized the need for more sound than his acoustic guitar could provide. He agreed to a jam. Haskell got a rehearsal room and I called Chuck Pettis and Leif Gurjoy to round out the ensemble. Chuck was a graduate student in physics and was a fairly good bass player. Leif was finishing his doctorate in math and was our drummer. We had to do a lot of scrounging to find equipment. Fortunately, Paul Snyder an MBA candidate at GSIA was able to round up a few amplifiers and even lent Leo his own prized Telecaster. I had an alto sax, Don had all the harmonicas needed, Leif had his drums, and Chuck had a stand-up bass. After about an hour of patching, we were wired for sound. The first results were impressive. Paul helped Leo adapt his acoustic style to electric. The rest of us had been away from R&B so long that we hung around in the background providing low-ego support for Leo's pyrotechnics. The first jam lasted for six hours. At four in the morning, over eggs and coffee at Ritters, a band had been born.

We called it Tiger Rose and T-Bird, after the two cheapest wines on the State Store list. This reflected our taste for down and out blues and our desire to keep our names out of it for fear of offending parents and graduate faculty advisors alike. Plus, we thought that it would help us get bar and fraternity gigs. My dad let us use his shop on the North Side for rehearsals. Paul turned out to be a great arranger and also served as Leo's mentor, teaching him the subtle nuances of the electric guitar. Don and I visited Sonny Gelman's pawn shop in East Liberty. After a few hours of bargaining, we emerged with tenor and baritone saxes. Paul provided some great horn arrangements to show off the band's new muscle.

Sonia and Judy, two friends of mine, were our first audience. Unfortunately, our debut was less than thrilling. Sonia seemed to think that we lacked showmanship. She actually said, "You look like a bunch of white guys holding instruments." She called attention to our choreography, specifically the lack of it. We were so rusty that we just stood there trying to play the music. The baritone sax was quite heavy and I had to sit down to play it. Leo was introspective and never looked at the audience. We spent a lot of time between numbers fiddling with the equipment and deciding on keys. Leo had to re-tune his guitar to play slide numbers. All of these things added up to a band that would put people to sleep.

Sonia took it upon herself to clean up the act and provided a lot of suggestions that improved things dramatically. First, she got us dressed right. Leo wouldn't wear anything but a work shirt and khakis, but that was O.K. because it fit his image. She got Chuck and Leif to wear black turtlenecks and pants and put Don and I into silver gray sharkskin suits, white-on-white shirts, and thin ties. She even got me a fake diamond pinky ring. Eventually, Don and I acquired alligator leather shoes, French clocked socks, and sunglasses---ten years before the Blues Brothers. Paul worked out a play list that would get people dancing and Sonia provided some moves that would convince our audience that we actually did have rhythm.

For me, all of this took an incredible amount of work. As I used the interactive controls to look at the context of the activity. I can certainly see my graduate work suffering. My professors look a bit threadbare as they worry about my "commitment." All you have to do is fast-forward to the crowd to see why my commitment might be a bit on the wane. There always seems to be one cute little teeny-bopper at every gig who seems to be transfixed by our music. I wish that this software could allow me to fast forward on their lives to see what became of them. How many of these hip little flower children turned into Volvo-driving housewives who can only talk about their "perfect child?" Even Buddha cannot explain this mysterious component of the nature of Woman.

I prevailed on my old fraternity, Delta Upsilon, to set the stage for our first gig---a Friday night open mixer. With some arm-twisting, the boys got most of the social chairmen of the other houses at Pitt and Tech to attend. In addition, they used their West Virginia bootlegging connection to provide the ingredients for their celebrated grain alcohol punch. The D.U.'s made sure that the place would be full of girls from all the nursing schools in the area. If we couldn't get that group rocking, we knew that we had no future in the music business. We inhaled deeply, ran onto the stage and began with "Knock on Wood." We blew them away---helped greatly by the D.U.'s punch.

As word of mouth spread about the party, we gained a reputation as a band associated with excessive use of alcohol. We went on to play at fraternity parties at Pitt and Tech. For some reason, we had a big following at Kenyon College. We were often invited to do three gigs on a weekend, playing on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night. I can drive from Pittsburgh to Gambier in my sleep and I probably did just that several times.

We evolved into a classic R&B band, inspired by greats like Sam and Dave, King Curtis, Booker T and the M.G.'s, the Iseley Brothers, and Otis Redding. We had a lot of fun and made a little bit of money. At the time, the only thing that sold big was acid rock and groups with psychedelic names like the Marshmallow Steam Shovel. As I watched our one-and-only one recording session, I was amazed at the clown that we drew for an A&R man. He wanted us to do all sorts of things to "make the music appealing to kids" like sing one song through a telephone handset. The guy had stupid little chickenshit sideburns, a style worn by men who wanted to spend weekdays in the straight world and weekends on the hip scene. He even started out one conversation with, "What's your sign?" I am convinced that we got nowhere in the recording industry because he didn't think there were many twelve-year old girls who would think of us as "cute."

The band died of neglect as we got on with our lives. Apart from Haskell, the guys have gone on to more "normal" professions. Leo even cleaned up his act and eventually went to medical school. I put my sax down and rarely picked it up again as I pursued my career in engineering.

I enjoyed the glance back at the past. I wish that they had software to project what your life might have been if you had made different choices.

Installment Eleven

Getting Around

For obvious reasons, there are no car dealerships here. If you want a car, you have to restore one. Now, I'll bet you thought the phrase "auto graveyard" was a figure of speech. Nope. The best old cars come here. There's a big junk yard outside of town and you can pick up a wreck and fix it up. Surprised? What do you think happened to all the '32 Fords and '53 Mercurys? They are either here or in Cuba. I spent some time looking at wrecks but I couldn't make up my mind. Well, there's a lot of time and no need to make a decision until the moment is right.

Travel broadens the mind, so I spent some time touring the place. You don't need a car. It is very easy to hitch hike. In fact, all the big rigs have the same sign painted on the door of the cab:

• Company Rules Require that the Driver Pick Up Riders
• The Driver Carries Lots of Cash

Due to all of the delivering, there are a lot of trucks here. My first ride was in a '57 PeterBilt Special with chrome fenders; the rest had been painted gloss black with an orange center line stripe. We were hauling a reefer with a load of fresh oranges. Eddie Schwerin, the driver, had been an accountant who spent most of his time on Earth daydreaming about a life on the road. He had found a career of pure bliss. He was the cynosure of every truck stop and never had to spend any time behind a desk in a small room. Merle Haggard was on the sound system as we talked about the truck, the weather, and baseball. I rode with him for more than six hundred miles. I left him in a small town in the desert at a truck stop that was made of adobe. Indian blankets were sold there When I wanted to leave, it was only a few minutes before I got a ride in a '50 White Cab-Over Freightliner. This driver, whose name was "just Fred", had a double-size sleeper and lived in his truck. I accepted his invitation to get some shut-eye while he took the rig into the mountains for the night. When I awoke, it was snowing lightly. We wound our way through the mountain roads as the snow frosted the pine trees. At 6:30 a.m., we pulled into a roadside inn made out of field stone and logs. Beside the giant fireplace, we enjoyed a huge trucker's breakfast of eggs, buckwheat cakes, and strong coffee. My companion was on a tight schedule and did not have sufficient time to enjoy the surroundings. He looked at his watch and said, "Well, time to press on." My eye was drawn to an object in the far corner. I strolled across the room and stood there in wonder. I said, "Fred, I won't be going on with you." He shook my hand and left.

I was looking at a Wurlitzer Model 1015 jukebox, complete with color wheels in its sides, art deco die-castings, and---most important---bubble tubes. It has a mahogany case that stands about five feet tall with an arched top surrounded by two cylindrical glass tubes. The arch was surmounted by a chrome and ruby glass keystone. Twenty four red pushbuttons set in a chrome panel enabled one to play each side of any or all of twelve 78 rpm discs held in stainless steel rings, provided that one had a nickel for each song. Six plays for a quarter. There were more than 56,000 of these beauties made between 1946 and 1947. Almost all wound up in Heaven. This particular box was loaded with the pantheon---Louis Armstrong, Red Allen, Duke Ellington, Bob Wills, Riley Puckett, the Harlem Hamfats, Gene Austin, Billie Holliday, Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Lunceford, Muggsy Spanier, and Pee Wee Russell. I blew a dollar and listened to them all while I watched the bubbles. I was doing a little Lindy Charleston in place when the waitress did a fishtail up and said, "Are you hep to the jive?" I reached out for her right hand with my left and kipped her about seven feet in the air. Did you know that everyone does aerials here? I liked it so much that I decided to stay for a little bit and enjoy the mountain scenery as well as the music.

I rented a small cabin for a few days. There always seems to be a nearby room that is charming and inexpensive. The manager found a pair of Nordic skis and boots that fit me. I left early one morning to explore the mountains. I was able to get around and see things up close because snow always packs well and it is easy to break trail. I had only brought along some crackers and cheese, so by three in the afternoon, I was pretty hungry. I paused at the top of a hill to admire a bighorn sheep and looked around. To my surprise, there was a small village nestled in the valley below. I made a quick run down the hill and found myself in the mining town of Rust.A few inquiries led me to Rosie's Cantina and a table before a blazing fire. It turned out that Rosie was a figure of legend; a guy named Jack was the owner, cook, waiter, and bartender. He perished in the Donner expedition and fell in love with the mountains. I did not find it unusual that he served exclusively vegetarian Tex-Mex fare; I had a great meal of bean burritos and rice. Jack's specialty is a pepper sauce that is only slightly cooler than a thermonuclear reaction. The fifty-odd residents of Rust were largely the unlucky among the Forty-Niners. They roam the hills in the summers and find enough gold to spend the winter at Rosie's. I spent much of the early evening listening to stories of the Gold Rush . As it got darker, I did not look forward to skiing home in pitch blackness. An old miner named Gus said that he had to drive over to the other side of the mountains. He offered me a lift which I eagerly accepted. He left to get his car while I said goodbye to my new friends. After a while, a horn honked.

Installment Twelve

1949 DeSoto Station Wagon

I walked out and was stunned to see a 1949 DeSoto station wagon, "the woodie nobody remembers." DeSoto didn't get into the wood-bodied station wagon market until 1949 and hoped this model would tap a growing market of suburbanites. The wagon was clearly inspired by its upscale competitor, the Chrysler Town and Country. Only 850 of these wagons were built. The chassis, hood and front fenders are the standard 125 inch sedan, but the rear half features white ash rails with contrasting panels and an all-steel roof.

The wagon would accommodate eight people, three each in the first two bench seats and two in the back. The spare tire enclosed in the tailgate is a feature unique to the 1949 model. The front end has the characteristic DeSoto "waterfall grille" which gives the car a toothy smile. Gus took great pride in showing me the 112 hp in-line six engine that was clean as a whistle. We lowered the rear two bench seats and loaded my skis. The wagon has a very smooth ride,. I was amazed by the absence of rattles, something rare even in the best-restored woodies.

When we got to my cabin, I thanked Gus for the ride. As I split some wood for the evening's fire, I looked back with great pleasure on the day. Exhausted, I fell asleep immediately and did not wake up until 7:00 a.m..

In the morning, I felt it was time to move on to new horizons. After another mountain breakfast, I paid my bill and only had to stand outside for ten minutes before a Bekins moving van came along. The driver had been a dentist on Earth and chose his profession to get as far away from teeth as he could. I was lucky --- he was going all the way to the coast and seemed delighted to have me along. He was an opera buff. We didn't talk much but listened to some wonderful stuff while the scenery whizzed by. He had a particularly good sound system in the truck. I was amazed at what they can do with old Caruso recordings up here. Better yet, there's a service that you can dial up that allows you to download ANY piece of music that has ever been recorded and download it onto a CD. Better yet, they have very friendly, knowledgeable operators. Of course, there is an ambitious program of making NEW recordings from artists who have arrived here. Although I don't much care for Lauritz Melchoir's new hip-hop album, Franz Haydn's tribute to Billy Strayhorn is doing very well.

I took copious notes on the audio system, because I wanted to have one just like it---or better. I heard a bell sound and I realized I had made a decision. Here, the future is made up of a lot of small decisions. It's nice to have freedom to make them without a lot of hassle.

There are a lot of truck stops here and they always seem to pop up on the horizon when you're hungry. Promptly at lunch time, a small town appeared on the horizon. Forgive me, but I'm going to digress a bit here. Saint Vincent told me that one of the most frequent signs of disorientation among newcomers is the "Film Fantasy." You have this crazy feeling there is a whole gang of artists, carpenters, and actors who are creating reality in front of you as you move along. I have found myself looking closely at the edge of things, searching for traces that things might have been left unfinished. I keep looking at faces in the crowd, thinking that the same extras may be used for different parts. Saint Vincent assures me that I am not creating this reality. He says that I am discovering and following one of an infinite number of possible variants on each moment made possible---of course---by non-Euclidean geometry.

Installment Thirteen

The Andy Hardy Town

Whatever its origin, this little town had been dreamed up by the same guys who created the Andy Hardy movies. The town square had Civil War era cannons at each corner flanked by little pyramids of cannonballs. The square was enclosed by a wrought iron fence and had a small bandstand at the center. The buildings in the surrounding square were made of limestone. It seemed that all the stores were doing well. Just outside the square was a 1940s vintage gas station faced in blue and yellow terra-cotta tile; the attendant actually had on a white shirt, bow tie and a paper overseas cap. He had red hair and freckles. Next to the gas station was a streamlined diner with a stainless steel roof and white enamel sides.

The name "LINDHOLM'S" had been painted on the roof and the building was surrounded on all four sides with low, well-trimmed shrubbery. Strangest of all, there was a green marquee, trimmed with white piping which ran from the entrance to the street; at the entrance was a script "L" set in a laurel wreath. An American flag fluttered in the light breeze on a tall pole to the left of the entrance.

My companion pulled into the gas station for a fill-up and tire pressure check. I decided to look this town over just a bit more, so I thanked him for his trouble and departed. He smiled and said, "I liked this town the first time I saw it, too." As the cream and red aerodynamic shape of the van receded into the distance, I walked under the marquee and into the diner.

It was an O'Mahony car, as snappy inside as out. It had a two-tone monitor ceiling of Formica, light blue with a white center strip. One of the trademarks of dining car design in the 1930s was the generous use of reflective surfaces. The stainless steel backbar with a stylized floral design was a visual center, picking up the light bouncing and flashing through the room. Careful attention had been paid to the total look, as all parts were designed to mesh into a single image. Since this diner had been built in the thirties, the Art Deco influence was strong. Especially handsome was the tiled floor of diamond-shaped black and white that gave the optical illusion of cubical forms. The chrome stools, with octagonal bases and fluted chrome bases, were covered in blue leather. Blue marbleized Formica was used liberally, covering the counter and tabletops. The backbar hood was black Formica, inlaid with designs that looked like a circle pierced by a stylized "S". The cash register was spackle-finished black with chrome edges.

I worked there for a week as a short order cook and got high marks for my Lyonnaise potatoes. Did I tell you that everybody is a vegetarian here? Who could kill any of the good animals that get here? Eggs don't count. Cows are glad to give milk. Plants don't have an afterlife, something about photosynthesis. Relax, everything tastes great---you can cook it in as much fat as you want. Would you trade a steak for a chocolate cake? Of course you would! On the other hand, it would not be right to have a world without without cheeseburgers. Fortunately, there is a giant factory that synthesizes vegetable proteins for just this purpose. You have to come here to get a good hamburger substitute. I got to be pretty good at cooking - I even concocted Eggs Benedict for one guy---I made the Hollandaise in the blender and used bacon substitute.

When I wasn't working, the drug store was one of my favorite places. The storefront was plate glass set in dark wooden frames surmounted with a rectangular leaded glass panel that bore the owner's name ("TIMBERLAKE") in ruby red as well as the words "SODA" and "DRUGS." Above the door rested two majestic crystal jars, each shaped like a classical amphora, holding red and green liquid. Prior to its present incarnation, a small bank was housed there and its influence was felt in the beamed 20 foot vaulted ceiling, skylight, and roof-line diamond-paned glass lunettes. Double-height glass and mahogany display cases had been built into the walls. A ladder was affixed to a brass rail and could be moved to access the upper cases. Signs advertised that the store sold not only prescription drugs, but also cosmetics, notions, garden supplies and house paint. Particular attention was drawn to the fact that such paints were "hand-mixed on the premises."

For me, the principal attraction was the soda fountain and a row of small round stainless steel tables topped with white marble. The chairs were metal, but the backs were draped with starched linen covers adding an unexpected soft touch. The first time I walked back to the fountain, my eye was drawn to a large wooden rack of comic books. I was astounded to find a 1947 issue of Blackhawk, from the period when they were still flying propellor planes. I could almost hear Olaf, the big Swede saying "Yumpin' Yiminy!" (or "You ban have a rotten swingout!")

This is common here --- where did you think all of the old comic books and baseball cards went when your mom threw them out? The thirteen issues of Life with Lindy stuff in them are as common as dirt. One guy has his room wallpapered with covers from the August 23, 1943 issue. (A few weeks ago, I was in a jam with Kaye Popp, the girl on the cover)

I picked up the Blackhawk and took it to the soda fountain, to be read with a Coke and a package of toxic-orange peanut butter crackers. The girl at the fountain said, "Want to try a balloon?" She pointed to a piece of clothesline stretched the length of the counter that was festooned with balloons. The idea is that you pay a quarter, pick a balloon, pop it open, and find a little paper slip that identifies a prize. I said, "O.K." I picked a blue balloon at the end. I hit the jackpot---the Banana Split. (Well, here---they probably were all banana splits). It was prepared in the strict canonical form: From left to right, the scoops of ice cream were strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. Pineapple topping went on the chocolate scoop, strawberry topping on the vanilla, and chocolate on the strawberry. Whipped cream covered the lot, finished with a cherry on each scoop. I had the option of ordering nuts. I did. I still have the Blackhawk.

I stayed at the Antlers Hotel and played checkers with the night manager. I also spent a considerable amount of time in the Billiards Parlor of that establishment. John La Rowe, a former prizefighter, presides over this elegant temple to unhurried study of the laws of Newtonian mechanics. The long, narrow room is the home of eight intricately carved Brunswick pocket billiard tables, each resplendent in quiet green felt with gold tassels on the pockets. The walls are wainscoted in dark chestnut and surmounted by wallpaper in an acanthus leaf pattern. The floor is polished wood, although each table rests on an island of medallion enameled tile. Windsor chairs line the perimeter of the room and brass cuspidors have been thoughtfully provided for tobacco-chewing customers. The lighting fixtures had once burned gas, but have now been converted for electricity. Incongruously, the windows are covered with lace sheers. An ornate cue rack with an elaborate beveled glass mirror stands at the center of the room, behind John's stand-up desk. In play, it is only necessary to call "Rack!" and a small man in a white linen coat, named "Shorty April", will appear and deftly form the triangle using a wooden frame. Each rack costs was five cents and in a full evening, one might spend $5.

During my time there, I met a number of characters, including "No Hat" Cohen and the Three Fingers Commissioner--- "Three Fingers" because he lacked two on his left hand and "Commissioner" because he arranged games rather than playing. Another guy is called the "Green Archer" and dresses like the cartoon character including green suede shoes. He is a pinball wizard who often works a hustle with one of the two Zombies---either White Zombie, a giant albino or Plain Zombie an ex-tailor who could answer any question about Laurel and Hardy movies.

Of all things, the principal non-billiards activity at the Antlers was world-class high-stakes charades. Although my colleagues lacked formal education, they shone in the area of mimetics. I was astounded at little Tommy Hopkins who never made it through grade school; one night he deciphered "Dusolina Giannini sang the role of Cio-Cio-San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly." This was no mean feat.

I went to a church social and a high school football game. I went to amateur night at the movies. It was very nice. It was strange that I didn't meet anyone famous. I had sort of expected the minister to be Norman Vincent Peale or the High School football coach to be Vince Lombardi, but it was not the case. There were no saints, religious luminaries, or former presidents. Just average folks who had been drawn to this place. I liked it very much, but the bell did not ring. I knew it was time to move on.

Installment Fourteen

My Grandfathers on LifeVision

[Editor's Note: The 4000 channel cable system offers a premium service called the LifeVision Channel where one can look back at your past life.]

I was thrilled with my trip. This sure is a great place. (Yes, that's another understatement.) As soon as I got back, I bought fresh vegetables in the market and made a big salad. After that, I brewed coffee and tuned into the LifeVision Channel. I thought that it would be nice to look back at my family, just for old times sake. The first tape that I selected was about my paternal grandfather. Please join me while I look at it again:

My Dad's father was born in 1860 in Rocca D'Aspide, a small mountain town about ten miles from Salerno in the Campania region of Italy. At the time of his birth, Italy was not yet a nation. He was nominally a subject of the Kingdom of Naples which was then affiliated with France through its Bourbon king. On the other hand, the entire Campania region was in the midst of a revolt led by Garibaldi that eventually led to the unification of an independent Italy under King Victor Emmanuel. Having visited Rocca D'Aspide, I am certain that the news of independence came late and had little or no impact. Campania had changed rulers with each generation for the past six hundred years.

The turmoil proved to be very hard on the people, especially poor. The railroad was one of the few beneficial impacts of Italian unification; at the age of twelve, my grandfather got a job as a track maintenance laborer. Although this was important to his family, it had the unfortunate effect of ending his formal education. He worked hard and by age twenty two had progressed to the point that he could afford to marry. He told me how he walked ten miles through the hills to Aquara, a small town east of Rocca D'Aspide, to court my future grandmother. My Uncle John was born in 1883, my Uncle Ralph in 1887, my Uncle Sal in 1889, and my Uncle Vince in 1892. Things went fairly well until the panic of 1898 sent the world into fiscal chaos. The railroad went bankrupt and left grandfather without a job. He tried a number of different jobs but finally came to the conclusion that opportunity lay elsewhere.

The family emigrated to the United States from Naples in 1904. My Dad was born in 1905 and Uncle Tony, the baby of the family, was born in 1908. Grandfather worked on the Subways in New York as a laborer and eventually got a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Uncle John married and settled in Philadelphia while Uncle Sal stayed in New York. Uncle Vince joined the army and was killed in Word War I. With promotions, the family moved west from New York, helping to bring other family members from Italy. Thus, I have relatives (of varying distance) in Newark, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Altoona, and Johnstown. Grandfather settled in Pittsburgh when he got a yard manager's job but support for immigration continued and we have family all along the railroad---Chicago, Lincoln, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. If you take the train west, there is always someone with our name in the phone directory. The family came to Pittsburgh in 1910. Initially they lived in a tenement, but their great dream was to own a house.

One of the yard manager's perquisites was first right of claim on packing crates. This was 1910-1920 when everything came packed in wood. Big shipments, like boilers, came in crates made of substantial timber, usually oak. Smaller things, like optical equipment, came from across the sea in mahogany or teak. Back then, wood was a throwaway item. Grandfather saved wood for five years. He carted bricks in a wheelbarrow from demolition sites and cadged things like windows and doors. Eventually, Dad, Uncle Tony, and Grandfather, built a house in Bloomfield at the end of Juniper Street on a lot in the hollow where no one else wanted to live. They also made their own furniture. My grandmother did washing and baking and managed to accumulate enough money for a piano---the only thing in the house that wasn't made out of those packing crates. The house wasn't plain, either---everything that could be carved was richly embellished. There was even a stained glass window. The place was filled with books. The house burned down a few years after he passed on to a life of bocce in the Park down the street.

Prior to my relocation, I saved few pieces of grandfather's furniture and proudly displayed them with more established "antiques." My favorite was his interpretation of the club wing chair, something that I always called it the "pompous chair." It has massive doric columns as the uprights (turned out of solid oak, about 6 in diameter) and very exaggerated wings. There is a matching Ottoman. Grandfather was very small. As I look at him on LifeVision he has the stature of a king reading to me from that chair as I sit on the footstool.

He's still a great guy---I liked that tape so much that I phoned and asked him to come over. In fact, I think I hear him at the door now. Excuse me for a minute.

I like the fact that LifeVision is all done through the computer. You can scan records and save little bits and pieces. I'm trying to assemble a home video album of my family. The next tape I ordered up was my mother's father, another interesting fellow,but very different from my other grandfather. He was an illegitimate child, born in 1879 near Palmi, a small town in the Calabria region of Italy,the "toe" of the "boot". Escaping the censure of her small town, his mother emigrated to the United States in 1880. When he entered the country, he was officially registered as Alfonso DiGiglio, his mother's maiden name. She went to live with relatives in Steubenville, Ohio and eventually married James Curcio and moved to Washington, Pennsylvania, a small town southwest of Pittsburgh. Although the child was supposed to have been adopted and baptized as Michael Curcio, the formal paperwork never seemed to catch up with him. Although he was a well-known businessman in the Pittsburgh area for over nearly fifty years, he had no official record. He, too was a big influence on my life, because Dad wasn't released from the Navy until late in 1946 and my mother lived with her parents at that time.

I was never told the story of his birth while he was alive. The story came to me as a great surprise when I was investigated for a security clearance. The process seeks to weed out possible "plants" by checking one's parentage back two generations to prevent an "enemy" from using the birth records of a child who died in infancy. My application rang alarms, because my grandfather was officially nonexistent. I had to spend a lot of time in the Washington (Pa) area ferreting out the whole affair. I finally found an old woman of the Curcio clan who was able to provide some of the details. I finally tracked down a copy of the marriage certificate and baptismal record and got my clearance.

Grandfather Curcio was in the wholesale grocery business, the most rough and tumble game outside the ring. As an illegitimate child, he was ill-treated by his stepfather, more like a houseboy than a son. The family business was fruit and produce and to this day, Curcio's in "Little Washington" is still the place where the wealthy buy perfect pears and raspberries out of season. It fell to Grandpa Mike to make the weary journey to the Strip in Pittsburgh every night, except Saturday, to bring the fruit and vegetables home. Wholesale produce auctions are a running swindle; you can only learn your way around by painful experience. The thugs who load and unload the rail cars and trucks have to be handled with a mixture of grease, humor, and a solid right hand. Bananas really did come in stalks with tarantulas; grandpa had ten of them in mayonnaise jars to prove it.

From 1900 to 1924, he slugged it out in the Strip for his adopted family, living on pennies in a shack with a family that eventually numbered nine children. My mother was born in 1917. When he saved enough to start his own stall, he got nothing from the Curcios. By 1930, he was established on the Strip and worked there until he sold out to a Korean family in 1970. I liked him very much, especially when he would tell me stories in the quiet of his grape arbor. Where, given a beneficial environment, my father's father would have been an academic or artist, grandfather Curcio would have been a captain of industry. He came here on a boat with sails; he lived until 1979, long enough to see space travel become passe.

I have a lot of respect for my two grandfathers. They were a very strong and omnipresent influence. More than once, I didn't get into trouble because I was working in grandpa's store rather than cruising around with the gang. Of course, doing well in school was the only way out of Dad's kitchen business, so I also had a lot of "inverse" motivation to do well in school. I have mostly good memories of growing up, particularly of the "extended parenting" of the rich Pittsburgh environment.

Installment Fifteen

A Trip With Eleanor Schano

It's time to tell you some other things about my new home.

First, there is no sex here. (I can hear the boos and hisses already.) I can't write sex scenes for love or money, so this came as a relief to me. What kind of a story would this be if there was sex? Would I be fooling around with comic books? Now that I have gotten around to the topic of relationships between the sexes, I owe it to you to elaborate. There is no biological role for sex --- membership here is the one thing in the universe that you have to earn and not inherit. Men and women get along so well that there is no need for sex. If we strip our human relationships of biology and defensiveness, what is left? Mutual respect, communication, and understanding are the essence. Here, everyone is as secure, good looking, and happy as they choose to make themselves. Why shouldn't the sexes get along in perfect harmony?

In case you're wondering, all good animals come here --- we have been getting a lot of deer lately. One of the first things that happen to you is that all your favorite dogs come running up to you on the street. And as I said before, something about photosynthesis keeps the plants renewing themselves.)

Second (on a more mundane note), all truck stops share one thing in common. When you go into the rest room, there is always a red door and a green door. Well, that's not quite true---there are always hot water, soap, and a clean towel on the roller. Thanks to non-Euclidean geometry, the red door always opens on an alley outside your home. I'll tell you about the green door later. Thus, no matter how far you travel, home is only as far away as the next truck stop. That really helps when it snows. For some reason, it only works one way.

On my hitch hiking trip, I found that you get a lot of rides with people as well as truckers. Not being a sexist, I was rather surprised to see how many blondes in convertibles were out travelling; that and blues musicians, with a smattering of baseball players and mathematicians.

My best ride was with Eleanor Schano, who used to be the weather lady on Channel 2 back in Pittsburgh when I was a kid. For those of you who don't know or remember her, she was a tall blonde woman who could be conservatively described as "statuesque." She was very popular with the male viewers. When Dad developed a sudden interest in meteorology, it was a bone of contention in my home. I met her once when I was 14, I had a job pumping gas at Munson's Esso on Perry Highway. She came into the station driving a red T-Bird convertible. It was a hot day and she was wearing a brief halter-top outfit. I stood there with my mouth open and, totally dumbstruck, let the gas overflow the tank. She gave me a big tip and said that every older woman needs something like that every so often.

When I met her again, she had moved up to a big black 1953 Cadillac convertible with red leather upholstery. The '53 was the first and, arguably, the finest of the El Dorados. Only 533 were made and each carried the whopping price tag of $7,750. I only had to look at it for a second to pinpoint the model. It differed from the stock Model 62 convertible by a rakish dip cut into the doors. The rear end (of the car) has classy little fins and the front end had enormous chrome bullet shaped "Dagmar" bumpers. The body was almost custom made with extensive use of lead filler, making the car very susceptible to rust and very difficult to restore. The El Dorado was distinguished in its time as the first car with a wraparound windshield --- and wind wings to boot. The left tail light lifts up to fill the gas tank.

It has a 331 cubic inch V-8 engine --- in the words of the great Joe Maher, "eight kittens purring and you can really make them cry." This version had every luxury option that Cadillac offered including the Autronic Electric Eye and power brakes. Factory air was not available on convertibles, but who needs it here, anyway? Eleanor was quite nice as well. I had a strange feeling that this particular non-Euclidean path had condemned her to drive along a desert highway, wearing a flimsy black dress. I asked a series of discreetly probing questions about her reasons for being on that road at that particular time.

She is a truly nice person and had a good laugh when I finally got around to discussing my perception of events here. She assured me that she was on her way home from a visit to her mother and that she rarely drove on this road. Nevertheless, I still had a vague feeling that I was making all this happen. Or- --and worse---none of this was what it seemed, something like a cosmic multidimensional ink blot and I was actually riding on a big lizard, only interpreting it to be a Caddy. Every time that I try to talk to Buddha about this all I get are vague but charming epigrams. Sometimes I get a hotfoot. Here, it's best to accept things as they are. Eleanor and I had a great conversation on the way to the coast.

It turns out she really was interested in meteorology and was not just a pretty face. Of course, there is no need for weatherpersons here, since the weather is always just fine. She is still in the broadcasting industry and has a great show on TV where she explains new technology to folks more than 100 years old. I was surprised to hear that: From the beginning of time until 1900 about 2 billion people were born From 1900 to 2000, 4 billion people were born Thus, most of the people here are relatively young and reasonably comfortable with technology.

I am sorry to tell you that regulations prohibit me from giving even a rough estimate of the number of people here. This is sort of the same rule that the IRS employs about the number of tax returns that it audits. I can, however, say that everyone has an equal opportunity to get in and that admission depends on what you do, not who you know.

Eleanor and I drove for the whole afternoon and early evening. As the sun was setting, we spotted a small restaurant and motel. Actually, the sign advertised that it had "The Other World's Largest Lighted Dance Floor." We stopped and had a very nice dinner and, by golly, the dance floor was lighted and it was huge. Chick Webb was playing, and he had Lionel Hampton sitting in on vibes. It was apparently an off night. Eleanor has a great swingout and taught me seven new Charleston moves that I had never seen before. Some other non-Euclidean rule makes it possible to lead complex choreographed moves by just thinking about it. We had gotten through most of the Lindy scene in Hellzapoppin' when Maxie Dorf showed up and blew us away in the jam.

At about midnight, Eleanor said that she didn't want to drive further. She suggested that we stay right here. I didn't object because I was tired as well. She excused herself for a moment and returned with a key --- one key. I didn't say anything, but my mind was racing. This is some sort of secret temptation. It's a test. I smiled and said, "Great. I'll be back in a minute."

I ran to the nearest phone and called Herb. Fortunately, by some other Non-Euclidean mechanism, he always answers the phone. I told him my story and I felt distinctly like a wimp. He laughed and said, "Sure. It's OK---there's no sex Here." Just the same, I had him check his computer. I could tell that he was a bit put out. After a few minutes, he was able to confirm that Eleanor was not an agent of the Opposition.

I have thought about this possibility once or twice a week since I was 14.

All told, we spent about six weeks together surfing, going to nightclubs, and dining at a wide variety of ethnic restaurants. This was all good clean fun and I feel that I ought to repeat that there is no sex here. Although I had a great time, I heard no bells ringing. I knew that it was time to leave.

Another thing about this place is that goodbyes are easy. After all, you have all the time in the world and you can always go back. We were having lunch at a truck stop along the coast. After some thought, I simply told her my feelings. Although I enjoyed my trip, I just hadn't made any progress toward finding a purpose for the rest of my stay here. I had to get back to finding my way. She understood right away. I gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek and then headed for the red door.

Installment Sixteen

My Dad on LifeVision

Of course, Dad is very important to me. I selected two LifeVision tapes of him, illustrating interesting points in his life. The first goes back well before I was born, to the time of Prohibition.

Back then, the only requirement for a nightclub was a room, preferably in a secluded location. Even though the public had an insatiable appetite for illegal liquor, the invisible hand of the free market still moved to allocate resources to those who provided the best service. Thus, the investor with an eye on the upscale dollar sought to provide his customers with some ambiance, preferably in the high style of the day. Investment in physical plant was, of necessity, tempered by the fact that the enterprise was illegal and could be subject to elimination at any time. Thus, few entrepreneurs were willing to countenance a planning horizon longer than, say, a month.

This is academic jargon for the fact that people were willing to pay more for liquor if it was served with "class." No mobster was willing to provide any more style than he could afford to lose in a raid. Thus, speakeasies opened and closed at a dizzying rate.

This created a market niche during the Great Depression for craftsmen who could provide such facilities. Thus, my Dad got his start in commercial carpentry by building cheap plywood bars and booths for speakeasies. The style of the time was Art Deco but working fast at night with cheap materials put a crimp on some of the finer touches and flourishes.

Dad did one or two of these things a week for most of 1930 and 1931. He had a crew of ten working by 1932. The secret to his success was prefabrication, offering the chthonic entrepreneur several fixed design options and adapting them to the floor plan of the room. In other words, he sold speakeasies by the yard.

During the day, his crew would cut plywood and pre-fit the components; these would be knocked down and trucked to the site for assembly at night. Only a small amount of finish carpentry was required. Of course, special touches like a kitchen or powder room were extra and required more time. Grandpa says that pizza was the food most often served at speakeasies because it only required an oven. Local Italian women supplied the dough, sauce, and other ingredients. Spicy pizza also increased the demand for beer.

The tape shows that sanitation was not that great --- he gets few calls for sinks or hot water heaters. Many patrons brought their own glass, although the rotgut whisky and beer was probably so full of toxic substances that germs were the least of the health problems. Grandpa remembered that one mobster used a lead-soldered auto radiator as a condenser for his still. He also recalls that at New Years, bootleggers used to manufacture "champagne" by injecting carbon dioxide into homemade white wine, a process known as "needling." This stuff was sold to the better elements of the city at $10 a bottle, a fortune in those times.

Both the Volstead Act and Dad's business came to an end in 1933. A lot of his stuff survived Repeal and existed for some years in Pittsburgh. Lou's in Shadyside was one of his creations. Hub's Pub on Butler Street --- the temple to the boxer Fritzie Zivic --- is another.

The full flower of Dad's era in speakeasies is now a hot dog shop in Washington, Pa calle d "Shorty's." Created for a mobster with some style, it includes dark plywood wainscoting under blond plywood panelling with chrome trim. All of the booths have a circular mirror. The chairs have three legs. The bar is rounded and there is a flying wing clock. and indirect lighting under the cornice mouldings. Raymond Loewy, eat your heart out.

Most important to me, it was during this period of enterprise that Dad met Mom. I often draw analogies between Prohibition and the current Drug Problem on Earth; I cannot, however, conceive of any family getting its start in life through the decoration of crack houses.

The next tape from LifeVision illustrates another side of Dad after his kitchen business got started, during the post-WWII housing boom. The business had finally gotten into the black. A lot of houses had been built in the North Hills of Pittsburgh and they all required "modern" kitchens. Of particula r note were two developments with the ominous names of "Plan Number 7" and "Plan Number 9." Sounding more like housing for the masses in Albania, they were constructed by the Brown and Vaughn Corporation before public relations specialists began dreaming up names like "Swanwood" or "Hunters Chase", or "Chancre Del Diablo."

Plan 7 is off McKnight Road and features streets named after characters in Morte D'Artur (Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin, etc.) Plan 9 is on Cumberland Road between McKnight an d US 19. Apart from general kitsch, I can't place the theme of this plan because the streets have names like Lindisfarne, Longvue, Oakview, Bella Vista. Perhaps, it is a tribute to eyesight.

In both "plans", the houses are repetitions of two basic designs, the "rambler" (an insipid one story design) and the "colonial" (a similarly insipid two story design.) The only break in the monotony is that sometimes the garage is on the left and other times it is on the right.

Dad did most of the kitchens for both Plans and it was his firm opinion that one would have to be an idiot to live in those "cracker boxes." He and Mr. Bittner, his salesman, spent a lot of time working with the housewives who, in turn, took special interest in their kitchen. Actually, "special interest" is too mild a term; it was more like a Holy Quest.

Thanks to LifeVision, I have a record of a typical sales call. You will, however, have to supply the falsetto voice of the lady:

• The Recitation of Hopes and Expectations: "I have been waiting so long for this."---"This has been my dream."---"I want it to reflect my individuality."
• The Showing of Photographs and Drawings: "I saw this in Better Homes and Gardens"---"My sister made this sketch."
• The Tape Measure as a tool of the Devil: "What do you mean when you say that won't fit here?"---"The refrigerator can't be that big."---"Do I need that much space just to walk around in?"
• The Cost Estimate: "I'll have to talk to my husband."

In fact, the kitchen in every Brown and Vaughn home was exactly the same. It was a 12'x14' room with three doors and four windows. There were, at maximum, three floor plans that would actually work. In the end, Dad would write down either "A", "B", or "C" on the order form.

Mr. Bittner would take measurements for psychological effect but there were probably ten kitchens on the floor of the shop at any given time that would fit any of these houses like a glove. For all the protestations of individuality, about 80% of our jobs in the "Plans" specified Primrose Skylark, a yellow Formica with little designs that looked like boomerangs. Yellow was very big in postwar kitchens.

Dad always made the sale because he included the Breakfast Nook. He had Uncle Al shoot a picture of one of our cookie-cutter kitchens using models that looked like the characters in the Dick and Jane books. "Father", "Sis", and "Brother" were sitting at the Breakfast Nook, while Mother --- wearing pearl earrings, a cocktail dress, and a little white apron ---w as shoveling eggs at them while they laughed, probably at one of Father's bon mots. They even had a Cocker Spaniel looking up intently at the whole happy family. The legend said, "Every day starts out right in an Art-Craft Kitchen."

This photo was the irresistible part of our sales pitch in the Plans. When I was studying marketing at college, I was reminded of Bruce Barton's advertising dictum "sell the sizzle, not the steak." Dad was no dummy --- he provided fantasy to an insatiable audience. It even worked on me. I wanted to have breakfast in such a kitchen some day when I had finished College and met the perfect woman.

My Uncle Tony, a jazz musician, told me that the woman who played "Mother" was a hooker, the food was rubber, the Cocker Spaniel urinated on the floor, and that there was an X-rated version of the photo showing "Father" and "Mother" finding another use for the Breakfast Nook. I have never seen this latter item and Dad always attributed its postulated existence to Uncle Tony's twisted mind. I'm not good enough with the LifeVision software to end the dispute.

Installment Seventeen

My Introduction to the Larger World As Seen on LifeVision

I thoroughly enjoyed my hitch-hiking trip around my new home. The time that I spent with Eleanor led me to think that I could sort out my future by rooting around in the past. Thus, I loaded the software for LifeVision and ordered several tapes. Please join me as I go through them.

The first tape begins at the 1952 Allegheny County Fair, held at South Park. We went every year and I liked the animals, especially the prize cows, sheep, and pigs. They were always so well-groomed and obedient. They also had a daredevil show, with guys jumping their cars over ramps and driving through rings of fire. In the Main Hall, men and women demonstrated marvelous products like potato peelers, cherry pitters, and donut makers. Once, we bought a gadget that was guaranteed to open anything--- bottles, cans, jars, King Tut's tomb, you name it. It had the word "Androck" stamped on the top. I used it to open a jar of pickles on the night before I set out on my last trip before I came here.

After we bought the Androck, we passed by a display of the World Book Encyclopedia. A volume had been placed open on a table to show an attractive picture of a steam locomotive. When I picked it up, an eager salesman pounced on Mom. The sales pitch took a long, long time.

I found it necessary to use the Fast Forward button, also zipping through multiple consultations of a heated nature between Mom and Dad. I slowed the tape down to the point where we drove home with a signed contract for one set of encyclopedias, student model, with a subscription for yearly updates. I scanned ahead to the point in time when the books finally came. I enjoyed watching Dad make a bookcase for the encyclopedias. As he was applying wood-grain formica to the case, he muttered something to one of his employees about how the salesman, variously described as"huckster" or "leech", had wanted him to pay $50 for such a case.

I remember that I liked the World Books and read them like novels. They were always there to answer questions. After watching a movie with an historical or biographical theme, I would always go to the old World Books to find out more. Through this, I came to understand the phrase "cinematic license." This always pleased Mom and even got a nod of approval from Dad, who was pleased to see some use made of his massive investment.

In the next LifeVision tape, I selected a few months in 1954. During this period, the Pittsburgh Public Schools did standardized testing. In the Fall and in the Spring, the teacher would hand out thick test booklets and we would spend the day filling in little circles with the answers. The cover said something like "California Achievement Battery" and it had a whole bunch of cryptic symbols and spaces on the front, ominously marked "For Administrative Use Only." As the tape began, I saw my teacher distributing the forms and "special pencils". We were warned not to open the book.

Actually, you couldn't because there was a round piece of paper pasted over the end. She took out a stopwatch, told us to tear open the book and begin. I didn't mind these tests at all. I seemed to be able to answer all the questions in the time tha t was allowed. The only problem was that we never found out how well we did. I asked the teacher once and she said, "That's confidential." In 1954, the annual tests were very easy for me because they asked about a lot of stuff that was in the encyclopedia.

After the May tests, my parents and I were asked to visit the principal. Dad hated these visits because he had to leave work. A call to the Office always began with a presupposition of guilt, "What the hell have you done now?" For this particular visit, we also had to go see the school psychologist all the way over in Oakland. Mom was afraid of the word "psychologist". I was strictly warned to to talk about this to anybody. There were interviews and more tests that took several days.

I was introduced to Miss Fanny Boyce, who struck me as very "old-fashioned." Her graying hair was tied in a bun and she wore severe tailored clothes with high-collared blouses as well as sensible shoes. She seemed to really like me and said that she was a "statistician", the first time I had ever heard that word. She explained that I had done very well on all my tests, that I was being recommended for a "double promotion" into the seventh grade. Further, I would be able to take special Saturday classes at Carnegie Tech.

This sounded great to me, because Mrs. Marcozzi, the sixth grade teacher, was supposed to be a real sour pickle. Mom was thrilled. Dad was concerned about the cost, but it turned out that the classes were free. Thus, I began preparations for entering the Arsenal Jr./Sr. High School. I had an appointment with Dr. Boyce every month. She was interested in my progress and listened to my problems. Her academic advice was first rate, but her social advice was out of synch with the times.

It seemed to me the kids at school always had access to information that I didn't. Where did fashion trends come from? Where did jokes come from? Where did dance steps come from? These were all mysteries to me. As I look at the tape, I was a real geek. I had to dress like the men in Aunt Helen's office because I was going to College some day. I had to wear glasses with thick plastic frames because anything else might get broken. Dad cu t my hair because barbers were expensive.

I began my love affair with streetcars and Carnegie Tech. I treasured my trips on Saturday. After a lot of cajoling, Mom eventually let me ride the streetcar by myself. Sometimes, I walked the whole way and pocketed my carfare for forbidden treats like comic books. When we moved to the suburbs, I rode my bike to West View and took the streetcar from there. I found a lot of places to stop and eat along the way. As I write this, I am reminded of the way that some of my friends used to chauffeur their kids from "activity" to "activity" in what seems like a never ending Gypsy caravan. I had none of this service, but maybe there are more perverts out there now than there were in 1954.

Carnegie Tech was another story. Everyone there looked like me and you could talk to people. The Saturday classes were really lectures given by various faculty members on what was then called "popular science." I got to hear about physics, astronomy, architecture, mathematics, music, and everything else that was taught at Tech. Later, I found out the City provided Tech with about $500 per lecture. This series was a prized plum for professors whose remuneration was not exactly magnificent. I also got to meet kids from all sorts of places in the city, including rich schools like Taylor-Alderdice, Schenley, and Mount Lebanon.

These kids were mostly very nice, although I was very intimidated by their talk of trips to far-away places such as New York, Chicago, Florida, and Europe. Mom was proud that I was going to Carnegie Tech, but she also saw it as a fountain of troublesome ideas. Mom really got the jitters when I talked of girls that I had met.

I slewed the LifeVision tape to Christmas. One of these girls had given me a recording of Messiah. I played it for Mom and she got very troubled by the "Hallelujah Chorus." She immediately decided that the people at Carnegie Tech were trying to turn me into a "holy roller." I tried everything that I could to convince her this was classical music. She remained implacable and continued to wail about girls and "holy rollers". Dad got into the act and began to recite all my transgressions from age four, with the constant implication that I wa s "easily led." He darkly suggested that I should cease hanging around with "those spoiled rich kids."

Finally, I got Aunt Helen to come over and describe how this was indeed a legitimate work of art for which American people had an inordinate fondness. She explained that this was how the English people did Opera and pointed out advertisements in the Press for performances of Messiah at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, where the Mellons went. "If it was Opera, it must be good, " thought Mom, "but why do the 'better'American people want to shout 'hallelujah' like the holy rollers?" Dad listened to the record once and thought that it was repetitive. He said, "Couldn't they think up more words?"

Culture clash was frequent at our house.

Installment Eighteen

The Summons

I spent about a year getting my apartment fixed up. A great hardware store is right across the street. It is owned by Bud Swain who ran a hardware store before he came here. His store is long and narrow with very high ceilings. Every inch of space is stocked with the necessities of life. The goods are displayed in boxes and barrels. Bud can find anything although you won't find anything in little plastic packages.

Every year, Bud distributes a calendar with all kinds of almanac information. The calendar usually has pictures of steam locomotives, but this year he went to poker-playing dogs. No home workshop should be without one of Bud's calendars. Bud always has the right tool or part for the job. He has snow shovels in winter and air conditioner parts in the summer. Not only that, he lives above the store and doesn't mind opening up on Sunday night or after midnight if something goes wrong. Bud is another one of the really good things about this place. My job on the woodwork went quickly --- here, paint stripper works the first time and you don't have to wear gloves. As I think about it, I haven't bent a nail or stripped a thread since I got here.

Another peculiar thing I have noticed is that studs are reliably on 16 inch centers. Saint Vincent knows a lot about furniture, learned from prayers that begin like, "Lord, please let that be a real Stickley Morris chair." A lot of graduate students have gone through Saint Vincent's chain of thrift stores over the years and he is very well informed about antiques and collectibles. He has great taste and sees to it that a lot of good stuff gets up here.

(Technically, here, we call these outbursts metaprayers, but I have it on good authority that all requests, even the spurious ones get a hearing. Not all requests are actionable - especially when military leaders or football coaches call for assistance. The authorities do not help any athletic team, not even Notre Dame.)

If you haven't seen any bowling shirts in the thrift stores for a while, it is because there is a fad for them here. I had Saint Vincent over for dinner and he brought me an electric blue King Louie bowling shirt that had been made for the Glen Lumber company in Beaver Falls. The back includes the company name superimposed over an embroidered beaver holding a hammer and a T-Square. The front proclaims in orange script that the shirt had belonged to one "Rummy DeCicco." I get farther at swank clubs with it than my dress suit although Berman did a great job.

Saint Vincent provided a lot of leads on furniture and I have got the place nearly complete. Yesterday, he located a blue glass Tiffany shade with grapes. One night, he brought Pablo Picasso over for pizza and got him to paint my bedroom white. He did a good job, was very neat, and signed it in one corner. Another night, Dr. Christiaan Barnard was our guest and carved the turkey. The Saint is very High Concept.

I have been busy building some shelves and I have set up my table saw in the garage. Although I like furniture, the bookstores in Heaven have attracted my interest and I need lots of shelves. The best way to decorate is with books.

I was busy with my carpentry when a messenger showed up. It was a kid in a black uniform with two rows of brass buttons. He had a leather bag around his shoulder and was riding a Schwinn Black Phantom bike. All of the parts that would have normally been chrome had been brass-plated. The messenger cut quite an imposing figure. He opened his bag and produced a single sheet of onionskin. Here is the message:

January 6
God would like to meet with u
tomorrow morning at about 10:30 am.

I looked at the note and then I looked at the messenger. Then I looked at the paper again. The messenger said, "He does all His own typing." I was pleased to see that we had a real hands-on CEO. I didn't say "Doesn't He have a spell- checker

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night. I got up at 6:00 a.m. and the first thing that I did was call Saint Vincent and ask him what to wear. He suggested a conservative business suit. I didn't have any objection to wearing a suit to meet God. Just in case Confucius was playing another of his practical jokes, I called Herb as well. He assured me that this was a real interview and advised me to, "Relax and be yourself." Uh Huh.

I got dres