Trip Advised Her

Mom in the garden of Baghdad's Zia Hotel in 1957.
Just from her posture and facial expression, you can tell how hot it was for this girl from Maine!

Are you well-traveled?  

And by well-traveled, I'm thinking of people who do more than just travel a lot. 

Although I don't like to travel, I know most people do.  Some of them simply enjoy being able to brag about where they've been and what they've seen.  Others of them, however, truly consider the world to be their oyster, as the saying goes.  

These are people whose passports read like encyclopedias.  People for whom travel isn't a hobby, but a gateway to cultural exploration.  They seem to be at home no matter what country they're in.  They delight in the unassuming ways humanity, however diverse, tends to share common traits, like the happiness of a smile, or the satisfaction of a well-cooked meal. 

Like me, my mother is not well-traveled.  But she's traveled farther than I have.  Considering her sedentary, domestic lifestyle, one might be surprised to learn that Mom's past nevertheless includes one pretty incredible global trek.  It took place in the 1950's, long before international travel was as economically and logistically attainable as it is today.  And her destination was Baghdad, Iraq, of all places!  A city in a country that still remains resolutely removed from most touristy agendas.

She took an ocean liner over there, across the Atlantic and Mediterranean.  Their crossing was inordinately rough and many passengers became sick, but although it was her first and only trans-Atlantic voyage, Mom didn't.  They stopped in Barcelona, Spain, where Mom took a day trip into its mountainous countryside.  They also stayed in Beirut, Lebanon, for a couple of weeks.  She flew back via Frankfurt, Germany, and Paris, France.  She never went abroad again, except to Canada, and never even bothered to update her passport.  But as she recalls that adventurous spring and summer of 1957, she marvels at what she experienced as a poor country girl from coastal Maine.

After graduating from high school, Mom had gotten a job working as a nanny for the Howards*, a wealthy New York family with a country home on Blue Hill Bay.  That family's patriarch was an esteemed medical doctor who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation.  His job was to evaluate medical needs in emerging countries and help local governments establish best-practice protocols for their public health services.

You see, during the years following World War Two, America found itself as our planet's primary purveyor of beneficence.  Our country had not suffered the physical ravages of two successive wars in Europe or Asia, so we weren't spending our post-war economy literally rebuilding, either socially or physically.  And our industrial might had generated many philanthropists who wanted to extend economic advantages and humanitarian assistance around the globe.  For the Howard family, that meant living abroad for 20 years, in Brazil, Iran, Mexico, Iraq, Switzerland, and Colombia.

When they left Maine for the Middle East, the Howards had five children.  A sixth would come later.  Mom had been working almost a year for them, and was getting ready to go to college in the fall of 1957 when the Rockefeller Foundation intervened.  The Howards asked her to accompany them to Baghdad to maintain a semblance of continuity for the children, at least until Mom began her freshman collegiate term.  So she was abroad from March until August.

On the day they arrived in Baghdad, a fierce sand storm enveloped the city with insidious grit.  What a welcome, right?  She did the children's laundry every morning in a bathtub, hung the diapers (cloth, of course) and other clothing on the porch, and within half an hour, they were completely dry!  The Howards joined a British social club and an Iraqi country club so Mom could take the kids swimming often in their pools.  At one of the clubs, an employee discreetly approached Mom and quietly asked if she needed him to hire for her a nanny to help look after her children!  Mom wondered how old (or young) he must have thought she was to have five kids, with the eldest being 10 at the time.  

Until their family's rented house was ready, they stayed in Baghdad's legendary Zia Hotel.  The Zia was a grand old-world edifice with faded luxury and a verdant garden overlooking Iraq's prehistoric Tigris River.  In 1928, Agatha Christie stayed there and based one of her mystery novels in it, so that tells you something of the property's gravitas.  Mom thoroughly enjoyed her own stay at the Zia, and especially their kitchen's greengage plum compote, which is a stewed and sweetened Middle Eastern treat.

Aside from Iraq's heat and dust, the major readjustment Mom recalls was having to ignore the little lizards that would constantly be climbing the walls inside the Howard's rented house.  It was a fairly gracious abode, inside a walled compound, with a garden featuring trees, shrubs, and grass.  The Howards employed a cook, Sami, who was from India, and prepared mostly an American diet, including a delicious apple pie!  There was a cook's helper, a chauffeur, an older married houseboy named Hassan, and a dishwasher who Mom recalls didn't like using soap.  At least they didn't have to boil the water; it was safe to drink from the faucets.  Mrs. Howard shopped for fruits and vegetables at local bazaars, and Mom would wash, dry, and peel all of the fruit since, unlike vegetables, they would be eaten raw.

On the Fourth of July, the Howards were invited to Baghdad's American consulate for an Independence Day party.  Mom recalls seeing its American flag - the first one she'd seen since departing America in March - and almost bursting into tears.  She hadn't realized how much she missed something most of us take for granted.

As she prepared to enter college, Mom returned to America on a trip Dr. Howard had personally arranged and funded.  The airline was Lufthansa, and the first leg of her journey was from Baghdad to Frankfurt, where she was scheduled to stay overnight.  For that, she had to take a bus from the airport to the hotel, a ride for which clerks at Lufthansa tried to make her pay on the spot.  However, before she'd left Baghdad, Dr. Howard had made clear to Mom that she wouldn't have to pay for one single thing out of her own pocket.  And unlike Mom, he was wise to the ways of international travel, and he knew she was a prime target for scam artists.  So while Mom doesn't remember why Lufthansa said she had to pay, Dr. Howard's parting words rang in her ear, and she recited them to anybody who would listen:  "Dr. Howard said I didn't have to pay for anything."  

Even though nobody in Frankfurt had any clue who "Dr. Howard" was, or why he mattered!

And sure enough, Mom didn't end up paying anything extra.  Well, not in Frankfurt, anyway.  And actually, she did purchase something for which nobody had planned.  Although it was late summer, and she'd been born and raised in New England, Mom discovered she was literally freezing in Germany, after spending half the year in the Middle East!  The previous day, when she'd left Baghdad, it had been 120 degrees in the shade.  So before she went back to the airport the next morning, she found a shop with early opening hours, and purchased a tan, thick, wool cardigan sweater in an effort to warm up.  She remembers being so unnerved being on her own in a foreign country, she didn't dare cross any street to find a clothing store - she just walked around her hotel's block until she found one that was open!

Mom got to Paris just fine, but once again, Lufthansa clerks raised an obstacle.  They claimed she had to check something on her ticket, and even though there probably was a ticket office at the Paris airport, nobody told her that.  Instead, they instructed her that she had to leave the airport and go to a ticket office in the city.  Remember, Mom was hardly savvy about anything regarding international travel.  So she took a cab from the airport into Paris, and paid for it herself.  

What "Dr. Howard said" meant even less in Paris than it did in Frankfurt!

Mom's flight to the United States didn't leave until evening, so she had some free time.  And her unexpected detour placed her right in the middle of one of the world's most glamorous cities, which for anybody else would have been a wonderful diversion.  But not for Mom.  Anxious and probably reeling from some culture shock, she fell apart in the ticket office, confused over why she had to have her ticket checked, why she had to leave the airport, and not knowing how she'd find a city cab - with her limited high school French - to take her back to the airport. 

The Parisian clerk who processed Mom's ticket couldn't help but notice her distress.  She took pity on Mom and calmed her down.  Her shift was about to end, and she had an American boyfriend, a soldier posted in Paris as part of NATO (this was right before France began transitioning from that post-war military alliance).  He owned a car and the three of them could go back to the airport and take in some sights along the way. 

As you can imagine, Mom suddenly felt incredible relief!  And when she met the clerk's boyfriend, he was as accommodating and sympathetic to Mom's plight as his girlfriend was.  They went out and got something to eat, and the boyfriend indeed drove them around so Mom could see the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.  Since by then it was dusk, and Mom was dazzled with all the city's glitter and lights, they probably took her by other tourist spots, but she was too overwhelmed to appreciate each one.

They got her back to the airport in plenty of time for Mom to make her flight.  The clerk even went into the terminal with her and made sure she encountered no other problems, accompanying Mom up until the final boarding gate.  While Mom was in college, the two of them became pen pals, as the clerk and her boyfriend eventually married, had children, and moved to the United States.  After that, they lost contact.

Years later, I was privileged to meet Dr. and Mrs. Howard in Maine.  They were both incredibly charming and still appreciative of Mom and how she'd contributed to their family.  Their remodeled and expanded farmhouse represented a miniature museum of their life abroad, filled with furniture and art collected from the various countries in which they'd lived.  As Mrs. Howard gave me a tour, I couldn't help but realize how much she seemed like a museum docent, pointing out various artifacts from their cross-cultural history.

The Howards obviously were more than just well-traveled.  Mrs. Howard was an accomplished artist and philanthropist in her own right who occasionally sent Mom postcard copies of paintings she'd created and donated for fundraisers across the world.  Most of their children ended up living abroad after they were grown, becoming a truly international family.  When Mrs. Howard passed away several years ago, her kids made sure Mom knew the funeral details.  Even they have fond memories of Mom, as she does of them.

Mom also remembers that Parisian clerk with considerable affection.  She and her boyfriend went above and beyond, graciously extending some global compassion to somebody whom other Lufthansa employees considered just another naive passenger.

Indeed, human kindness can literally go a long way, no matter our journey.

Nigerian Madonna, a watercolor by Mrs. Howard in 1987
benefiting UNICEF and a children's home in Nigeria

_____

* Out of respect for the family, Mom asked that I not use their real name.

Have a Seat

My father's desk chair for his little home office.
Mom got it for him in the 1970s from a mail-order company.
It arrived as a kit which Dad then assembled himself.

 

For eight hours every workday, many Americans sit in chairs.

And if those chairs aren't comfortable for them, those Americans tend to complain about it.

Sophisticated ergonomic chairs have become their own industry, since medical problems can be caused at least partially by poorly-designed chairs.  Supportive seating equipment is to the modern American office what hardhats are at construction sites, and goggles at welding shops.

I used to work for a major national healthcare company, at one of their regional distribution centers here in North Texas.  My boss, and his boss, were in charge of facility management.  We had a secure cold storage area, where at one time, the bulk of this country's flu vaccines were housed (talk about "cold" "storage"!).  This facility also featured a vast traditional warehouse, an intricately complex robotic storage/retrieval system from Germany that sorted a myriad of small drop-ship medical items, and two separate call centers on two floors.

The German robot broke down a lot.  A LOT.  Often, my boss and his boss could address its maladies, and there was a separate room full of computer servers just for that robot.  Whenever I'd see my boss's boss suddenly burst from her office and sprint to the robot's computer room, I knew we were down!  There were several times they had to call for emergency technology teams to fly here from Germany to fix it.  

The warehouse workers had multiple layers of protective rules from widely-adopted industry standards and government regulations that addressed most of their problems and safety concerns.  Even though we didn't have a union shop, all OSHA rules still applied, and they are many, and detailed.  The bulk of my job involved making sure we stayed in compliance with them.

Meanwhile, the call center workers in our building didn't have the same type of protocols regarding their comfort, health, or addressing whatever safety issues they encountered.

Issues like really uncomfortable chairs.

Long before I worked there, their office staff had been complaining about the chairs in which they sat.  As the company had grown over the years, combining employees from acquired companies, it had collected not just personnel, but all of the office equipment associated with those other firms.  You wouldn't think office chairs would factor significantly into the merger and acquisition activity that has taken place during America's healthcare industry consolidation, but they did.

Up in the second floor call center, which was the larger of the two in our building, very few people had the same style of chair in their otherwise uniform cubicles.  And none of those chairs were new.  Many of them featured all manner of amateurish ergonomic fixes, usually involving pillows from home and duct tape.  Not only did they look awful and unprofessional, they really didn't provide their occupants with the support they needed to sit for eight hours every day while they typed away on computer keyboards and handled one phone call after another.

Ultimately, it wasn't the aesthetics of those chairs that finally got to company managers.  It was the ever-increasing complaints from employees forced to tolerate the ergonomic dysfunctionality of those chairs.  I'm not sure about the raw data regarding non-ergonomic chairs and health problems, but for a healthcare company, things finally clicked:  Uncomfortable workers were not a good selling tool when those folks were on the phones with customers all day long.

So eventually, the decision was made to get rid of all the old call center chairs - every single one of them - and replace them with a standard ergonomic model for everyone.  Nothing fancier for supervisors, nothing piecemeal for one person to claim any disadvantage if they considered their new chair inferior to somebody else's.

I was not directly involved in selecting that new chair, but I heard it was quite a process in and of itself.  Management contracted with a third-party chair supplier who then brought on-site an assortment of models from various manufacturers for employees to evaluate.  I was told things upstairs became intense.  Apparently it was a combination of excitement over finally getting to participate in some progress, mingled with anxiety over this progress getting botched if an inferior chair was selected.  Whatever the emotion, there were plenty of them while folks registered their preferences.

And I get that.  My job involved a lot of walking in the cold storage area and warehouse, so my workdays weren't all spent in a chair.  And corporate America, no matter the industry, isn't known for robust employee engagement.  So being able to help create a significant solution to a real problem was no small thing.  The drama of that process was tiresome, but understandable.

But we hadn't seen anything yet.

A new chair was finally selected.  Dozens of them were ordered.  I think we were talking about 60 or 70 of them.  When the new chairs arrived, everyone's mood upstairs turned positively ebullient!

Meanwhile, my bosses and I had been discussing how we were going to dispose of 70 office chairs, all of them in various stages of dilapidation.  Considering the size and purpose of our facility, we certainly had huge dumpsters out back, but those were already being filled from our normal activities.  Would a local charity take them?  No, because even the needy shouldn't be expected to want what we'd already deemed uncomfortable and even unhealthy.  I can't remember how we'd decided to dispose of them, but suddenly, it didn't matter anyway.

You see, it was my task to get the old chairs out of the cubicles and make sure everybody got a nice new chair.  I remember going upstairs and being in a good mood, anticipating participating in something grand and fun with long-suffering co-workers.  What could go wrong?

I began with the cubicles that were currently unstaffed, pulling out the chairs and lining them up against a wall.

"What are you going to do with those?" one of the call center employees suspiciously snapped.

"Um, they're getting disposed of," I replied nonchalantly.  I thought nobody wanted these chairs.  People had been complaining about them for years.  It's why the company went through this huge process to buy new ones.

I was wrong.  

Instantly, a whole new maelstrom erupted.  "But I want to keep my chair!"  Over and over, co-workers began to chime in.  "I've sat in this chair for years!  It's like an old friend!  It's got character!"

Seriously.  People who one day before had professed loathing and disdain for their chairs were now strenuously protesting their removal.

I stopped, went downstairs, and told my bosses.  The three of us were incredulous.  And it didn't take long until managers from upstairs had been marshaled by their subordinates to insist we let people simply take their old chairs home with them.

Yes, they wanted the new chairs for their cubicles.  But they wanted their old chairs at home for their nostalgic value.

So I went back upstairs, and simply pulled out all of the old chairs so they lined the large room's walls.  Employees from the chair supplier then started dispersing new ones to each cubicle.  This furniture reshuffling took place while employees continuously juggled phone calls from customers.  They'd be taking their old chairs to their cars after their shift was over.

But not everything was over.  Out of the blue, a new cry emerged.

"Hey!  What about people on the first floor?  We want old chairs too!"

"Hey!  What about us administrative assistants in the executive offices down the hall?  Maybe we want old chairs too!"

I kid you not - suddenly junky old chairs were all the rage.

Literally.

My boss's boss had an MBA in facilities management, and she was as much in the thick of this as my boss and I were.  Other senior executives got dragged into it as well.  Before too long, we ran out of old chairs, so the disposal issue evaporated as a consideration.  We ended up giving away more chairs than the company had originally planned, and buying a few more new ones just to stop the chaos.

It all gave fresh relevance to the phrase, "No good deed ever goes unpunished."

_____

I Smell

 

One of this spring's heavily-scented blossoms on our backyard's enormous magnolia tree,
just as it was opening.

Do you smell?

I do.  I admit it.

And I'm not talking about our body odor.  I'm asking if your sense of smell helps color your world.

That's what my sense of smell does.  It reminds me of long-ago memories, whether they're pleasant or not.  My sense of smell tells me of changes in the weather.  And yes, at those times when I can smell my own body odor, it annoys me.

I used to purchase expensive cologne to help mask my B.O.  When I lived in New York City, I would take special trips up to Bloomingdale's on Third Avenue to purchase their then-exclusive line of Lauder Men cologne that for some reason, they sold only in the women's fragrance department.  I remember the clerks would acknowledge my savviness when as a man, I'd stride right up to the Lauder Women counter on Bloomies' fabled, gaudy main floor and ask to purchase their men's product! 

"Ahh!  You know your fragrances!" they'd invariably exclaim with approval, knowing "ordinary" customers had no idea to get a man's fragrance from a woman's counter.

I admit it made me feel kinda special, knowing I possessed an urbane fashion secret in New York City, of all places!  It really burst my bubble when eventually, I overheard somebody joke that they smelled of Lysol after I'd hugged them!

I remember marching myself immediately into the bathroom, taking my shirt off, and sniffing deeply into my armpits.  Sure enough, as a day wore on, that pricey Lauder fragrance would mingle with my body chemicals to turn what in the store smelled so sophisticated into merely eau de Lysol.  After that, I became even more deeply conscious of how other people receive my smell.

When it's humid here in north Texas, where the atmosphere generally stays quite arid, I can smell in the air distinct whiffs of a heavy, moist, musty aroma I smelled daily on my morning walks to the subway in Brooklyn, New York.

Early on those metropolitan mornings, I'd trot down three flights of stairs in our 90-year-old apartment building, which itself exuded nearly a century's worth of diverse residential odors.  I'd then burst from a cramped, stuffy vestibule into what passes for fresh air in Gotham.  I would immediately encounter increasing layers of must-tinged aromatics, walking across our building's private concrete courtyard, its pavement usually still glazed with a fine dew from a night only recently ended.  It was probably the most peaceful time of the day for our neighborhood, and its nuanced smells helped me imagine how that big, grand city was itself rolling out of bed and getting ready for whatever cacophony its denizens would be soon creating.

I can tell you I can't remember anything remarkable odor-wise about my walks back to that apartment during the evening rush!

And when I later lived in Manhattan, mostly all I ever smelled on my walks was exhaust from motor vehicles... and waste rotting in fetid garbage cans lining the sidewalks in my Kips Bay neighborhood.

Yesterday, I was getting my car serviced at a garage I've used for years.  Thankfully, although it is now old, my Honda doesn't break down often, meaning I rarely have to visit my mechanic.  They're located in a small town near my house which has a liberal smoking ordinance allowing for indoor smoking if certain mechanical ventilation standards are met.  And I could distinctly smell cigarette smoke in the well-air-conditioned waiting area.

There was no actual smoke, which told me the ventilation system was working well, and indeed, the place was absolutely FREEZING inside!  But there's no disguising cigarette smoke, especially these days, when so many places even in Texas prohibit indoor smoking.  For me and my nose, having such smoke-free ubiquity makes those instances when it exists even more noticeable.  So eventually, since it was a nice morning outside, I opted to retreat to a shaded bench on the opposite side of their front door.

And I realized how the odor inside my mechanic's place of business was bringing memories to my mind that I hadn't visited for a long time.  Helping grease those memories was my location:  That garage is just down the block from a restaurant where years ago, I worked as a host.  And the host stand was near the front door, which was also near... the restaurant's large bar.

Since this was located in the same municipality as my mechanic, the restaurant's bar also was specially-ventilated to welcome smokers.  Fortunately, the ventilation worked quite well, and I was never really bothered by the smoke itself.  But the odor was still there, especially in the woodwork, carpeting, and furniture.

Then I began to remember all of the various other smells more unique to that restaurant.  Foods obviously have odors, as do the different spices and seasonings in their recipes, which together create unique fragrances for everything from chips and dipping sauces to fajitas and varied beverage options.

After a six or eight-hour shift, I discovered, those smells tend to stay with a person.  I never liked leaving work smelling just exactly like greasy chips, melted cheese, and charred fajitas.  I've never had another job whose essence literally traveled with me, embedded in the fibers of my clothing.

My boss expected me to wear a dress shirt, dress pants, and necktie for every shift, which meant most of my dress clothes ended up smelling just like the restaurant's interior, no matter how often I washed the shirts or took my clothing to the dry cleaner's.  In fact, I'm convinced those dry cleaning chemicals actually served to sear the restaurants' odors into my clothing permanently.

When I eventually got another job, I threw out all the clothing I'd worn at the restaurant.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm mildly autistic, or on "the spectrum" describing that condition.  I've heard autistic people tend to have especially sensitive senses when it comes to smells and odors.  Like the memories of Brooklyn that automatically pop into my consciousness on heavy, humid Texas mornings.  

I have a good friend who shares my interest in cologne, and I'm not ashamed to admit that one afternoon, we actually found ourselves going from one shop to another at a posh Dallas mall sniffing tons of fragrances just for the fun of it.

An emerging category in the personal fragrance industry has become unisex fragrances, or smells that aren't designed for any particular gender.  While overall, the science of how personal fragrances get blended seems to depend more on marketing than biology, my friend and I both find the unisex confections far more pleasing than most fragrances marketed for a specific gender.  They're neither sweet nor musky, but far more complex, with aromas more evocative of ideas and places than emotions or sexuality.

Then, of course, there's that most elusive of all First-World fragrances:  the prized New Car Smell!  Actually, I've heard that some people can't stand the new car smell, but I've never, ever met one of those people.  I have friends who've recently purchased brand-new vehicles and while yes, their cars each have a distinctive, mechanical, synthetic aroma, both are surprisingly pleasant, as industrial aesthetics go.  I've heard that major automotive companies have actually researched the materials, fabrics, and fluids out of which motor vehicles are built, painted, lubricated, and detailed in a quest to determine the chemical recipe of a new car smell - and they haven't been able to do it.

Which, actually, protects the profits they generate whenever they sell brand-new vehicles, right?  No matter how accurately a spritz of bottled "New Car Smell" might smell, it's not like its pricetag could possibly match those dizzyingly-high numbers on dealer windowstickers.

But then too, whether in paper or coin, even money has a scent.

_____

Dad's Caged Dad?

(Note:  This essay was originally posted in 2017.  I have revised it to better depict the humanity of a relative I never knew.)

I have an undocumented immigrant in my family tree.

Well, at least one we know about.

He was Caucasian, which might surprise you.  He didn't breach any border crossing.  Nor did he pay any human traffickers thousands of dollars to get here.

Although... a form of human trafficking does factor into his story.

We're not completely sure of how he got to America.  But according to family lore, as far as my aunt Helena was concerned, what we think we know tends to make sense.  And the timing works.  We'll never know definitively, because our family's undocumented immigrant died in the 1950's.  As a naturalized United States citizen.  And an alcoholic.  

And because he was an alcoholic, he was not fondly remembered by his children.  Neither in the quantity of stories they recounted to us about him, which were few indeed.  Nor in the affectionate, poignant qualities relayed with what memories they did share.

My aunt, who died in 2016, and my Dad, who died in 2015, were his children.  So the undocumented immigrant was my paternal grandfather.  He died long before my own parents ever met.  And for years, Mom didn't know much about him either, because Dad, Helena, and their mother hardly ever talked about him.  

Early in their marriage, Dad did explain to Mom why he listened to so much classical music.  It was because the only decent memory he had of his father was intertwined with the genre.  As a toddler, Dad would sit in his father's lap while his father listened to classical music on the radio.  And sometimes, his father could be calmed during angst-saturated alcohol binges if he could hear it.  That meant the intricate strains of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms became a sort of soundtrack of serenity for their family.

Eventually, Dad told us about the evening he got home from work, as a college student back in Brooklyn, and opened the door to the apartment he shared with his family.  And there was his mother, and Helena, standing on the other side of a short, portly figure crumpled on the floor of their apartment's foyer.

It was my grandfather.  Dead.  My grandmother had arrived home first, and then shortly thereafter, my aunt.  And then Dad.  Dad closed the door, and the three of them stood, silently, looking down at the man whose drunken stupors had become legendary in their cloistered neighborhood of Finntown, in Brooklyn's Sunset Park.  

Dad recalled that his sister and mother and he were numbed by a mixture of relief and grief - but not grief that he was gone.  It was grief about how much the family had suffered, living with a hardened alcoholic all those years.

Finally, if only to break the heavy silence, Dad voiced a question devoid of emotion:  "Well, who do we call?  Will Halversen's take the body away?"

Halversen's was a long-time Norwegian funeral home on Sunset Park's 8th Avenue.  But I'm not even sure there was a funeral.  A cousin in Finland recently found an old, grainy photo of somebody who looks like my grandfather in a casket with flowers displayed nearby.  But no notation anywhere as to the photo's subject matter.  It's possible that my widowed grandmother mailed the photo to our Finnish family as a formality, or maybe the photo is of somebody else entirely.

We do know he's buried in Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood cemetery, in an underground 3-level vault (even Gotham's graves are high-density).  But the other two levels of his grave remain unused.  My grandmother and aunt bought the set, but couldn't bear to be interred along with him.  They're buried elsewhere in Green-Wood.

My grandfather was born in Finland, in a sliver of that Nordic country invaded by Russia in the Winter War of 1939, about two decades after his "immigration" to America.  My Mom has several silver spoons with which my grandfather's sister was able to escape as their family's home in Viipuri faced imminent danger from the invasion.  The town of Viipuri, still in Russian hands, is today called Vyborg.

As a young man, my grandfather set off from Viipuri as a sailor, or seaman, or deckhand, working on trans-Atlantic steamships and freighters.  We have records of him attending the venerable Seamen's Church Institute in Lower Manhattan, along the docks that used to spike outwards from the Financial District.  At the Seamen's Church, dating back into the 1800s, worship services and socioeconomic programs were geared to maritime workers from around the world, coming ashore in odd shifts, at the mercy of an industry rife with corruption, and achingly lonely from months-long stints at sea.

And this is where some unsubstantiated world history enters his story.  The following narrative comes from Helena's recollections of something her father told the family at some point.  I didn't ever hear mention of it until after I was grown, and only from her.  I can't remember my father ever broaching this topic.  So while its provenance lacks proofs, it does answer some questions, even though - and even because - it's quite unsettling.

According to Helena's version of her father's account, his last working sea voyage was a freshly-loaded freighter from the Caribbean headed towards Europe.  Oddly enough, the seamen had been strictly instructed to stay away from a locked portion of the ship's hold, below deck.  Which, of course, was like telling a bunch of teenagers not to do something.  Before too long, my grandfather and some of his shipmates had broken into that forbidden part of the ship.  And what they saw deeply distressed my grandfather.

There, in the locked part of the hold, were men.  

Black men, in shackles.  Caged, as it were.

From factual evidence regarding a new mailing address he established for himself in New York, we believe this happened sometime around 1913, which initially made me dubious.  Slavery was still a thing, that long after America's Civil War?

Apparently, an illicit fragment of it was, since it was a topic of grave concern for the League of Nations during the 1920's.  Somehow, somebody apparently arranged for these men to be smuggled aboard without the crew's knowledge, and ostensibly in Europe, they were going to be off-loaded, and probably shipped to yet another destination.

We don't know more details about that discovery today, but back then, my grandfather knew exactly what was going on.  And he wanted to be no part of it.  Absolutely not.

The ship's next port of call was New York City, with which my grandfather was somewhat familiar from previous visits.  He likely knew there was a vibrant Finnish community in Brooklyn, and that he could become culturally absorbed there without attracting much attention.  So when they docked in New York, my grandfather simply jumped ship - literally - forfeiting his pay in the process.  And he walked away from those caged human beings, off of the pier, out onto the streets of New York, never to work on ships again.

My father took this photo of his father - the older man at left, and again in the mirror, top right -
in their Sunset Park apartment in the late 1950's, not long before his death.
It's one of the few known photos of my grandfather.
Nobody can remember who the other two men are.

Eventually, after he'd married and become a father, my grandfather obtained his United States citizenship, but we don't know how that evolved, either.

The young woman who would become my grandmother, who arrived from Finland years later, spent her first night here on Ellis Island because her American sponsor didn't show up to claim her.  That was one of the legal ways people got into our country back then - by having a sponsor in America vouch for you.  Officials on Ellis Island herded those migrants whose sponsors hadn't claimed them into a large cage with iron bars for the night.  My grandmother could hardly sleep, what with the utter lack of privacy, and worrying about what might happen to her.  The next morning, she made sure she was at the front of that cage.  In my mind's eye, I imagine her cage was probably larger than the cage my grandfather saw on that ship, but the possible irony seems eerie, right?  Both of my paternal grandparents, arriving in different ways, had cages feature prominently in their coming-to-America stories!  

Eventually, a sternly-dressed woman strode into Ellis Island's fabled immigration hall, having just gotten off of the visitor's boat from Manhattan.  She walked right up to my grandmother, and asked her in perfect Finnish if she wanted to get off that island.

"Of course I do," my spunky grandmother eagerly replied.

"Well then, just follow my lead," the anonymous woman ordered.  She turned to an immigration clerk, and said she'd come to claim my grandmother, and had a job immediately for her in Manhattan.

"Is this true?" the dispassionate clerk managed in broken Finnish.

"Of course it is!" my grandmother retorted, completely unaware of what that job was.

My grandmother Laitinen's first US employer
lived in this townhouse, 60 W. 11th Street
in Greenwich Village. I took this photo in 1986.
Historians call it "the 1843* Samuel Cooke
House", built by Andrew Lockwood and first
occupied by a ship captain named Samuel Bourne.
Lockwood was one of the developers of 11th Street,
which at the time was at the city's northern reaches.
The property's first auspicious owner had been
Cooke, who was rector at New York's famed
St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church.
Other owners would later rent it out
to various occupants, so we don't know who my
grandmother's celebrity employer was.
More recent owners have included the son
of the late publisher Malcomb Forbes.
(*The historical plaque affixed to the
home's façade says it was built in 1842)

The two woman left the hall and got on the next boat to Manhattan as soon as possible.  And that night, my grandmother found herself working as a maid at a glittering party at a Greenwich Village townhouse that was rented at the time by a well-known silent movie producer.

As they say, "only in New York," right?

At some point, obviously, my grandparents met, got married, and had children.  My grandfather never seems to have held down a steady job, and eventually came to be known mostly for his prodigious drinking, and for writing a somewhat regular column in the local Finnish newspaper, New Yorkin Uutiset.  He wrote pieces about current events, philosophy, and life on the sea under the pen name "X Seaman," since that's what he was.  Years later, Helena learned that the prestigious New York Public Library had some of his articles on file as part of their cultural heritage archives. 

After my aunt's death, Mom eventually found among her effects a personal journal of her father's.  It was a stunning discovery, because my father and Helena certainly never, ever publicly acknowledged its existence.  In it are pages and pages of hand-written notes, pontifications, aspirations, prose from classical literature, quotes from famous historical figures, Bible verses and prayers - some in Finnish, some in surprisingly good English, and all by hand.  He drew utopian cityscapes and landscapes, and much of the lettering is in elaborate script.  The artwork at the top of this essay is an example.

From some of the dates he provided, his work appears to have started during those long ocean voyages, but they continued well into his New York City life.  He penned deeply eloquent prayers of dedication after the births of both of his children.  They reflect what must have been an aching sort of love for them, tinged perhaps with formidable intimidation by the responsibilities of being their father.  

The poignancy Mom and I definitely never heard in their recollections of him echoed to us from the journaling he crafted in their honor.  She and I came to the conclusion that they likely never knew he had that journal while he was alive, and after he died, none of them ever wanted to look inside it.  That Helena kept it all the rest of her life strikes us as mysterious.  What also remains mysterious is why he left the maritime life for good.  No specific mention is ever made - at least in English - of his transition from ships to Sunset Park.

A family friend who knew my grandfather in Brooklyn's old Finntown has suggested that one of the reasons for his drinking - despite Finns being notorious for their alcohol consumption - might have stemmed from his atrocious discovery on that trans-Atlantic ship.  As a Finn, back in the days when Finland was virtually 100% Caucasian, my grandfather would have barely known about slavery, and to him it likely would have been something that horrible people had done back in another time and place.  Not on board a ship he was working!

So for all the agony my grandfather gave his family through his drinking, maybe there was an explanation, if not an excuse.  His probable distress over unwittingly witnessing the horror of human slavery may have ended up putting him in another cage of alcohol abuse.  Even though we can't know for certain, I completely see the plausibility of such a scenario because I know from personal experience:  We humans sometimes handle stress in a variety of unhealthy ways.  

Life often is unfair.  Sometimes egregiously so.  Both in what happens to us, and how we respond.  It's not the most comforting epitaph, of course, but maybe my grandfather's story exemplifies that fact.  And maybe also serves as a cautionary tale.

After all, the epitaphs for you and me haven't yet been written!

Subway Robin Hood

 

My father as a Brooklyn teenager

Was your father ever in a street gang?

Growing up in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, my Dad's childhood was never one of affluence.  His mother worked multiple housecleaning jobs while his father was, um, rarely gainfully employed.  None of their neighbors nor friends were wealthy by any economic measure.  And yes, in such neighborhoods, at least in big cities like New York, street gangs have historically been an unavoidable part of life.

Not that Dad was ever a member of a street gang.  At least, not in the "West Side Story" sense of the term.  But he did "run" with a regular "pack" of other guys his age... and I mean, they RAN.  They raced each other around the park, the beach, and down sidewalks.  They played stickball in the street, sprinting with gusto from base to base between parked cars and fire hydrants.  They ran up and down the stairs inside apartment buildings when it was raining outside.  A lot of it was noisy and gritty, but virtually none of it was criminal or harmful.

Most of the time, anyway.

There was one day down in fabled Coney Island, when a friend of Dad's was fooling around with a broken glass bottle, and tossed it to him when Dad wasn't ready for it.  Not that anybody can ever be "ready" to catch a broken glass bottle, but kids goof off with all sorts of potentially dangerous objects without a thought to logic.  And some random ideas that, for the briefest of moments, may seem fun or winsome can in the next brief moment become neither.

This was one of those random ideas that should not have been exploited.  As the broken glass bottle, all jagged edges and surprisingly heavy, crested in the air, its trajectory turned to just the right angle.  It met my surprised father's forearm as he reached up instinctively to try and catch it before realizing what it was.  And yes, there was a lot of blood.  Everywhere.  And this didn't happen in front of their apartment building, or down in the avenue, but in Coney Island!  Miles away from home by subway.  

For the rest of his life, Dad sported a sizable scar on his left forearm from that harrowing day.

After I graduated from college and was working back in New York City, I learned from my aunt Helena, Dad's sister, that he'd had - of all things - a NICKNAME!  Yes, a bona-fide, urban gangster-esque nickname bestowed upon him by his neighborhood pals.  Remember, in the culture of the street, even if you're not part of a vicious criminal element, you don't really ever get to pick your own nickname.  The other kids give you your nickname, whether you like it or not.  And Dad didn't like his.  

It was... "Zeke".  

Actually, as nicknames go, "Zeke" isn't that bad, is it?  But like I said, it was my aunt who told me Dad had a nickname, not Dad himself.  He hadn't ever said anything about it as my brother and I were growing up.  So during my next phone call with Dad, I asked him about Zeke, and while he wasn't upset about his sister spilling the beans, I never could get him to elaborate about it.

You see, his street years were so far removed from the suburban, corporate lifestyle into which he'd matured that reliving memories from those days made him uncomfortable.  Those memories of growing up as a first-generation American, with an alcoholic father, were undoubtedly painful for him.  He went into the Army after high school not so much out of patriotic duty, but to try and put some literal and emotional mileage between his new adult self and his childhood self.

I never met my paternal grandfather.  To this day, we know precious little about him.  We know he did manage to eke out something of a journalistic reputation writing for one of the local Brooklyn newspapers catering to the city's Finnish immigrant community, which was clustered around Sunset Park.  We've heard that some of his articles are today part of the New York Public Library archives featuring collections from the city's vast, diverse legacy of culture-specific journalism.  

Indeed, before the Internet and social media, printed newspapers were a key source of language-specific information for the many cultures and niche diasporas populating the city's ever-evolving immigrant communities.  Brooklyn's Finntown is considered to have been the largest group of Finnish immigrants in America.  Nevertheless, while my Dad had a number of Finnish friends during his youth, Brooklyn's spectacularly broad cultural milieu meant he also had Italian, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Irish, and Jewish friends. 

But getting back to newspapers.  As America's long-time journalism epicenter, New York City boasts a robust history with the medium, at one time having 15 dailies.  Back then, as throngs of office professionals and blue collar laborers descended into the subways to go home every weeknight, most of them would purchase the latest evening edition of their favorite newspaper to learn what had happened while they'd been at work.

Remember, they didn't have their personal social media accounts to visit during spare moments in their day!  Oh, how did they cope?

Along with several of his neighborhood pals, my father attended Manhattan's High School of Aviation Trades, which is now located in Queens.  In those days, aviation was still an emerging industry, and while Dad never went any further with an aviation career, he was pleased to see my brother do so.

Attending the Aviation Trades High School meant Dad and his friends were riding the subway to and from school every weekday, during both rush hours, like so many other commuters.  

If I had been an urban teen, riding the subway to and from school like he did, I'd like to imagine myself using that time to study.  My father, however, apparently preferred to use his subway commutes more for fun with his friends.

Well, "fun" as defined by unchaperoned adolescent juveniles, anyway.

Once, after I'd moved back to Texas from New York, in a rare - I mean, RARE - moment of fond recollection, Dad launched into a dinner-table story of the times during their commute home from school when he and his fellow classmates would literally snatch newspapers from the clutches of unsuspecting subway riders.  

Yes, you read that correctly.

Back then, you see, the subways weren't air-conditioned, meaning that for much of the year, to circulate air, each subway car had windows that would be open.  They featured larger openings than the windows on today's trains, and were double-hung.  That meant they didn't have today's narrow partial-fold design, which likely was invented to thwart activities like what my father pranked years ago.

As a subway train would be pulling into its next station, it would be slowing down while passing by rows and rows of people standing in tight rush-hour formation up along the edge of the platform.  And nearly all of those people would be holding an evening newspaper they'd just purchased.  Meaning each newspaper was completely hiding their face as they scanned headlines, using up every spare moment before the subway's doors opened for them to enter.

Dad even paused in mid-recollection to check with me:  "You know from living in New York, we fold our newspapers in halves length-wise, because when you're in the subway, space is at a premium."  I nodded in agreement.  It was a luxury for New Yorkers to be able to open up a fully-unfolded newspaper at home, where other people wouldn't be pressing against you in the crowded confines of a public bus or train.

Well, my quiet, honorable father and his high school friends would use that opportunity, riding inside their moving subway car, to lean through open windows facing the platform, reach out, and literally grab newspapers from the hands of passengers waiting on the platform!  Because the papers were folded as I've described to you, they fit nicely back through the subway's windows!

The kids would then bring the paper into the subway car, unfold it, and yell out gleefully, "OK, I've got the Times here - who wants it?"

Or, "I've got the Herald-Tribune, or the Daily News" or whatever... and somebody in the car who didn't already have a paper would call out, "I'll take it", and my father and his friends would give the paper to that person.  Even the ethnic or foreign-language newspapers - usually somebody would take them.  Hey - they hadn't had to pay for it.  Because the papers would be folded up, Dad and his friends usually couldn't tell which brand each was until after they'd hauled it back into the subway car.

At the next station, they'd repeat their exploits, and again at the next.  To be as adept as they were with their prank, they obviously honed their skills during more than one subway ride.  However, I don't know what happened as the train would eventually become populated by people who'd had their newspapers snatched at prior stations.

As he described his exploits, my father was genuinely giggling - he hardly ever giggled! - at the recollection.  But then he caught sight of my mother at the other side of the dining table, and she was horrified!  Here he was, her kind and moral and loving husband, telling us about how he enthusiastically stole somebody else's property and gave it to yet another person on the subway!

He was the Robin Hood of subway newspaper readers!

I'm laughing out loud even as I type this recollection - both at the story Dad was telling, and the abruptness with which he cut it short after Mom started protesting!

Of course, it would be easy to cite an ethical argument against what he did.  And I can guarantee you this:  If my brother or I had EVER done anything similar to what our father professed to have done on the subway, Dad himself would have been furious with us.

Oh, that Zeke.  He must have been a handful.

_____