Self Indulgent Nostalgia (No. 2.2)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My imaginary Sticky

Dana -- My imaginary Gentlereader

"If you're yearning for the good old days, just turn off the air conditioning."
                                                                                  -Griff Niblack

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Last week's letter ended thusly:

"Still, In the course of one summer, I went from perpetual pissing contests with the boys I ran with back in the Burgh (with an h) to enjoying school (and a tiny bit of civilized social life) for the first time since first grade. It wasn't till the following September that things got stupid again."

[Coming soon to a theater near you, Boys In the Burgh (with an h)]

Clearly, an explanation is in order. It started in third grade. We had moved from one Pittsburgh (with an h) neighborhood, the Bluff (near Mercy Hospital) to the Sahside flats the summer before third grade.

I have a limited amount of memories to draw on from first and second grade that I won't bore you with here. While I had plenty of friends, the only one I remember vividly is Frankie Mancuso, baseball card collector extraordinaire. Hello Frankie, wherever you are.

Starting with third grade, I remember lots of things vividly, I particularly remember my friends. The baby boom was still booming so believe it or not my Dear Stickies I had a lot of friends (not so much nowadays Gentlereaders).

My primary group of friends, "the boys I ran with" of the first paragraph, consisted of the boys I sat in a classroom with from third thru seventh grade and less intensive friendships with other kids from the neighborhood that were in other grades or went to a different school. As far as I knew at the time, this was how the world worked.

Long story short, I was a weird kid that loved to read but hated school. I wasn't a nerd but I came to the conclusion early on that my typical friend's obsession with sports, who was toughest, what were the right sneakers, the right clothes, etc. was, well, goofy. But I had to fake it as best I could because those were the rules. It must be me.

[For the record, I wasn't a sissy. I loved swimming, biking, skateboarding, rock 'n' roll, Cub Scouts, street fairs and what I guess you could call urban exploring. I wandered all over the Sah-side and even other relatively far-flung neighborhoods (streetcar rides were five cents). My parents often had no idea what I was up to. I was always home for dinner and then by the time the street lights came on. 

No one ever tried to kidnap me and no priest ever tried to molest me. Go figure. But yes, I know it happened/happens. When I'm king child molesters will be castrated and placed in cages with doors that have been welded shut.]

Bit of a detour, I know, but you see, that's why eighth grade rocked. I fit in with those kids and found out that if I worked hard I could get decent grades.


Now, we finally come to the reason why this, in retrospect, turned out to be one of the most pivotal years of my life, which I made mention of two letters ago when I began what's turned into a series.

[Thank God, FINALLY!]

Dana, I've missed you. Where've you been?

[Getting drunk, you haven't told them yet, have you?]

All in due time, I want to finish this series first. Gotta tell ya, buddy, I think you're overreacting...


Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, pivoting. If I had gone on to Catholic high school I would've had a whole different life. Not necessarily better, but certainly quite different. I regret nothing as I've had a full and interesting life. The best part of which was 21 years with your late, great Nana -- and is 34 (and counting...) years with your mom -- and is 18, 16, 13 & 13 (and counting...) years with yinz guys.

If I had gone on to Catholic high school I would likely have also gone to college and have entered the real world with a minimum of 120 or so certified college credits obtained in four years as opposed to the 39 certified credits I managed to accumulate in the course of the 47 years that have passed since I graduated from high school.

But...

My parents couldn't afford to send me to Catholic high school with my new friends. Hell, they really couldn't afford the tiny house we lived in, the first one they ever owned.

And...

After eight years of hyper-conservative Catholic education, I thought a public high school would be cool. I mean, c'mon it was the late '60s! Time to rock n' roll!

Unfortunately...

Although compared to the inner city neighborhoods I had lived in the township I/we found ourselves living in was "rich," the boys in burbs were, for the most part, just as goofy as the boys in the Burgh (with an h).

However...

I did have a few close friends that got me through and helped me to survive things like the gym teacher who thought his job was to toughen up the boys in his charge for Vietnam (although he personally didn't see any need to put his ass on the line).

I can't help but wonder if S'ter had an intuition of what lay ahead for me. Somehow, she didn't discover I was off to join the infidels till after eighth-grade graduation when she was wishing us goodbye and good luck.

She was shocked, and had tears in her eyes, when she found out what my plans were. I was shocked that this aloof, cold, taskmaster apparently gave a damn about me. Go figure. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, Patronize, or share.


Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Self Indulgent Nostalgia (No. 2.1)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My imaginary Sticky

Dana -- My imaginary Gentlereader

"I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine." -Lou Reed


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

S.I.N #2 ended with yours truly about to start eighth grade, my eighth and last year of Catholic grade school. I had previously attended two other Catholic grade schools in Pittsburgh (with an h), one large, one small. I barely remember the large one, Epiphany. I only went there for first and second grade.

A beautiful church is still there, the school is not.

Yes, Virginia, It was once possible to avoid formal education till the first grade. I was fortunate enough to have avoided daycare, pre-school & kindergarten. I was about to explain why I think this was a blessing but it occurs to me that in the Age of the Victim that what I think is a blessing might be worth some dough eventually if the country keeps lurching to the left, so, nevermind.

The small one was St. John the Evangelist, on the Sah-side of Pittsburgh (with an h). Tiny, blue-collar, everyone knew everyone. The priests, the nuns, and the janitor all lived on the grounds. I played basketball in the church hall and dodge ball in the playground that was across the street.

The playground's still there, the school is not.


Anyways, it was the first day of eighth grade. For the previous seven years, everyone I went to school with walked there. St. Ursula's was (emphasis on was) a fairly large school and kids were bussed there from all over Pittsburgh's (with an h) Northern burbs. I still walked. In fact, I lived two doors and one large grass-covered field (that served as the school playground) away.

Nowadays, according to what I just found on the web, there are only 122 students, and the bulk of those are pre-K and Kindergarten. There are 6 kids in the eighth grade. Six.

On my first day of eighth grade, it took two classrooms of about thirty kids each to hold all the eighth graders. Therein lies a tale, beyond the obvious demographic one I mean.


I was directed to report to the top floor and told where I could find the eighth grade(s). There was a nun standing in front of both doors with a list and I was asked what my name was. It wasn't on either list; they conferred. I don't remember exactly what words were used but the gist of the decision rendered was, "Well, let's try him in your class, if he can't handle it, we'll move him to mine later."

Not the sort of thing a shy, blue-collar kid from the inner city who never liked school to begin with wanted to hear. What does she mean? Can't handle what?

I was introduced to the class and assigned a seat next to a kid named Ed who was wearing a red pullover corduroy shirt with leather strings at the throat that was about a hundred times cooler than the dress shirts and clip-on ties I had been wearing for the last seven years.

He immediately befriended me, at least partly out of pity I suspect, and I immediately befriended him out of desperation, in search of a lifeline. Something was very different here. I couldn't quite put my finger on it yet and I needed a guide.

In whispered conversations between having our books assigned to us and being reminded that we would be killed -- or at least excommunicated by the Catholic Church -- if we lost or damaged a book (that wasn't different), Ed told me that eighth-graders could get away with not wearing a tie. It was not technically legal but an unspoken decriminalization policy was in effect.

I removed my tie when the nun wasn't looking and slipped it into my desk.

Sweet.

Sorry, S'ter, I can't remember your name. (At the time, deliberately slurring your words and saying yes'ter or no'ster -- instead of yes sister or no sister -- was a weapon we yielded mercilessly in the endless psychological warfare we fought with the nuns. It made 'em nuts.) However, you have my thanks. While, at the time, I was too stupid to appreciate it, you taught me how to appear smarter than I actually am.


As it turned out, there were two things going on that were the reason for the something different going on here feeling mentioned above. This was the "smart" eighth grade. These kids were the ones that got better grades and who were taught at a higher level than the kids next door, whose grades ranged from average to um, problematic.

Your's truly came from an environment where everyone was piled into the same class and taught at the same level. Hating school, and being one of the seven kids of a very blue-collar couple, it was easy for me to do just enough to get by without attracting much attention.

To survive, to "handle it," to keep from getting moved to the other eighth grade -- and based on my performance the previous seven years that's where I belonged -- I had to take school seriously (well...) for the first time. And Sister Anonymous was teaching us at a level designed to enable us to thrive in a rigorous Catholic high school.

Although I wound up at the local public high school due to a combination of factors to be detailed anon (a shortage of funds being the primary one), S'ter taught me that if you're motivated, you'd be surprised what you can do.

I was motivated because of the other reason I had intuited -- and which by lunchtime of that first day I nailed down -- that something different was going on. The majority of my classmates came from families that my dad would describe as rich. That is to say, middle-middle and upper-middle class. There was only one, that I knew of, that might be considered actually richish, the son of a VP of Pepsi. We had all the free Pepsi we could drink at school functions.

But it wasn't their money I was impressed by. The thing is, in defiance of the stereotypes you might expect, they welcomed me with open arms and provided a glimpse of a world I thought only existed on TV.

While I wasn't a grade getter, I was fairly well-read for an eighth-grader, and I was as enthralled as they were with the revolution that was being documented in the pages of Life and Look magazine. We were gonna save the world in the long term and revolutionize the Catholic church in the meantime.

Recess was spent discussing current events, books, Pop Art, and Rock 'n' Roll (and avoiding certain males from the other eighth grade who were remarkably similar to the "friends" I had left behind).

And, of course, who was "going with" who, and were you going to the next dance at the church social hall? I confess I never went. I was too shy and too aware of my mail order catalog clothes and too aware I was lacking in something they took for granted.

Still, In the course of one summer, I went from perpetual pissing contests with the boys I ran with back in the Burgh (with an h) to enjoying school (and a tiny bit of civilized social life) for the first time since first grade. It wasn't till the following September that things got stupid again. Poppa loves you.

To be continued...

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, donate, or share.


Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Self Indulgent Nostalga (No. 2)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My imaginary Sticky

Dana -- My imaginary Gentlereader

"Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." -Peter De Vries


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

While it's only been three weeks since the publication of S.I.N (No. 1), that particular missive was well received and I quite enjoyed writing it. Anyways, given that the primary focus of my efforts is to burden my progeny with my alleged wit and wisdom, episodes from my misspent yute would seem to be in order.


Sometime during the summer that I turned 13 -- the "Summer of Love" (1967) -- me and mine moved from inner-city Pittsburgh (with an h) to the 'burbs. At this point, Ed and Reda's (pronounced Reeda) brood of seven had been reduced to three -- my two younger brothers and I. We were sort of a sequel. The first four had been born relatively close together, there was a six-year gap, and then the last three of us incarnated.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, it was the beginning of one of the most, if not the most, pivotal years (+) of my life.


Although I don't remember the date, I do remember that moving day was hot. I/we went to sleep that night protected from the elements by only sheets, perhaps a light blanket. We were all awakened at some point when it started snowing. Well, it felt like it anyway. It was cold!

See, in the city, in an un-airconditioned apartment (which was the norm, not the exception at the time -- movie theaters had blue banners with white letters in an icicle font hanging from the marquee that said Air Conditioning!) it was cooler at night, but not by much. All that concrete and asphalt stored up the heat of the day and released it at night.

Incidentally, the movie theaters also had signs that said something like, Stop Pay Television! Sign Petition Here! Pay to watch TV? can you imagine!

Another night, we were awakened by a noise in our backyard and long story short this story climaxed with the five of us hanging out a window, captivated by a family of raccoons that had knocked over our backyard trash cans and were enjoying a late supper. Much larger, but much cuter, than rats.

When we shared our delight with the neighbors we were quickly disabused of our notions and informed that as far as the neighborhood was concerned these were giant rats and should be treated accordingly.


The bad news was that we had a tiny house with a tiny backyard because the house had been built at the back of the property. While the front yard was decently sized it sloped downward from the street making it difficult to play Wiffle ball or Lawn Darts (the original version; giant, potentially deadly darts).

The good news was that where the tiny backyard ended a patch of woods began that sloped down to a creek. After having been born and raised in the city it seemed like a forest to me. We played in that creek, which was perhaps two feet deep, and didn't pay much attention to the junk it was polluted with. Compared to inner-city Pittsburgh (with an h) this was a sylvan paradise.


I rode a school bus, five days a week to the ginormous pool at North Park. There was some sort of program that bussed kids from the Northern Pittsburgh (with an h) suburbs of Allegheny County to a huge swimming pool located in (the cleverly named) North Park.

Having arrived too late to sign up for said program, and not having been issued the card that was necessary to get on the bus, one of my newly minted suburban friends would simply board ahead of me and hand me their card out the window of the bus. If the bus driver noticed this via one of his large side-view mirrors he kept this knowledge to himself.

While the current crop of Stickies will find this hard to believe, I was so into swimming at the time I took the swimming lessons that took place an hour before the general public was allowed in the pool just so I could get more pool time. I already knew how to swim because I had done the same thing for two or three previous summers at the tiny 22nd Street pool on the Sahside of Pittsburgh (with an h).

Each summer I would earn a new set of cheap Red Cross pins that proved I was a qualified beginner, intermediate, and advanced swimmer. Nowadays, like everything else, things are much more complicated. Lawyers I'll bet.

I fell madly in love with Monica (Steve's little sister?). We swam together shared snacks from the snack bar and started sharing a seat on the bus. One day towards the end of summer her cousin showed up and suddenly Monica wanted nothing to do with me anymore. No words were spoken so I don't know what happened. I got over it by the time school started.

And that's when things got really interesting. Poppa loves you.

(To be continued...)

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, donate, or share.


Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.]